UNKNOWN MASTER, altarpiece painter
(15th century)

Annunciation

1450-60
Tempera on wood, 95 x 78 cm (transferred to new panel)
Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

The Hungarian National Gallery now owns twelve panels from the high altar of Liptószentmária illustrating the life of the Virgin and the story of the Passion. Each of the huge wings of the altar was adorned with four scenes. In each triangular painting of the gable is a prophet. The initials PN, believed to be the painter's mark, can seen both in the Seizure of Christ and on the flag in the Crucifixion.

As in the paintings of the great Netherlandish masters of the fifteenth century here too the setting for the Annunciation is an interior. The representation of the pillared architrave, chequered floor, wooden beams and Gothic windows, all help to give an illusion of space. The spatial effect of Gabriel's figure and the spontaneity of his arrival is well suggested by the mantle fluttering around him in sweeping curves. The Virgin, startled at her prayers by the unexpected arrival of the angel, turns from her reading-stand. This type of representation was particularly popular in Netherlandish painting, one famous example, now in the Louvre, being Rogier van der Weyden's "Annunciation (c. 1435).


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