Description
This small panel depicts the Virgin Mary at the moment when she receives the announcement of the Archangel Gabriel. Seated on a wooden throne, Mary holds an open book and brings her right hand toward her face, with an expression combining surprise, inward reflection, and composure. Her dark blue mantle, decorated with delicate gold borders, spreads over a seat covered in reddish fabric. At the left are flowers in a vessel, while the gold ground surrounds the figure with finely patterned decoration.
The painting belongs to Simone Martini’s Orsini Polyptych and is preserved in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp under inventory number 258. The museum dates it between 1320 and 1330; it measures 24 by 15 centimeters and was painted in tempera and gold leaf on wood. Originally it formed a pair with the angel Gabriel, depicted on another panel of the same portable altarpiece.
