The Annunciation

c. 1435/1440

Fra Filippo Lippi

Painter, Florentine, c. 1406 - 1469

Separated by a vertical, column-like partition, a woman to our right kneels opposite a winged angel to our left, who also kneels and holds the stem of a long white lily propped against one shoulder in this horizontal painting. The upper corners are curved, suggesting the panel was set in an arched frame. Both people have pale, peachy skin with a yellow cast, delicate facial features, and starburst-like gold halos hovering over blond, curly hair. To our left, the angel faces our right in profile, one hand held to the chest as the other, resting on the raised knee, holds the stem of the lily. The angel wears a voluminous, lavender-purple robe tied in pleats at the waist with a gold cord. The neckline is marigold orange, and the cuffs and hem are edged with gold. The wings emerging from the shoulder blades are made of rounded, gold and blue feathers like the eyes of peacock feathers. A white dove hovers above the angel’s head and gold rays extend toward the woman, to our right. The woman kneels, facing our left in profile, her head bowed. A gauzy white head covering is tied around her hair. She holds the sides of her deep blue robe at her chest, over a coral-red dress. The hem of the blue robe is edged with gold lettering resembling writing. She clutches a small, thick book with a teal-blue cover and gold edges in one hand at her chest. The angel and woman are separated by a slate-gray, column or partition, and the room behind each person is slightly different. The angel is set in a room with stone-gray walls with a doorway on the back wall, and rectangular openings on the wall to our left. The salmon-pink floor spans both rooms, but is banded with gray along the bottom edge of the painting to our right. The woman is in a room with a bench and shelves holding a thick book and a pink flower in a glass vase. A darkened doorway opens, presumably into another room, opposite us. A curtain hangs down along the partition in front of the angel, perhaps indicating that a window separates them. The rays emanating from the dove also disappear behind the partition to reemerge on the other side, suggesting a window.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 100 x 161 cm (39 3/8 x 63 3/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.4.35

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly Tommaso Puccini [1749-1811], Villa a Scornio, near Pistoia.[1] possibly (Sangiorgi, Rome), early 1900s.[2] Achillito Chiesa, Milan.[3] (Piero Tozzi [1882-1974], New York), by 1925 until at least 1927.[4] Percy S. Straus, New York, by 1932.[5] (Bachstitz Gallery, The Hague), by 1934.[6] (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris), by 1937;[7] sold 1940 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[8] gift 1943 to NGA.
[1] In commentary on Filippo Lippi, Tommaso Puccini writes ("Dialoghi sulle Vite del Vasari," Archive of the Gallerie Fiorentine, Florence, c. 1800, Ms. no. 46, fol. 199): "Io possiedo di questo Autore un quadretto conservatissimo esprimente l'Annunziata...Genuflette davanti alla Vergine, assorta in contemplazione del S. Spirito che viene a deporla nel seno il Messia, bianco vestito, con un giglio in mano, un grazioso Angeletto che non tocca coi ginocchi il terreno, ma sta sull'ali sospeso. Il fondo rappresenta l'interno della Camera con una prospettiva intesa a meraviglia..." ("I possess by this author a very well preserved little picture representing the Annunciate...Kneeling before the Virgin, rapt in contemplation of the Holy Spirit who comes to place the Messiah in her womb, dressed in white, with a lily in his hand, a lovely little angel who does not touch the ground with his knees but floats on wings. The background represents the interior of a room with a perspective which is marvelously understood"). Apart from the detail concerning the knees which do not touch the floor, the description is quite similar to the NGA painting, but it may refer, of course, to some other of Lippi's paintings on this subject.
[2] The name "S. Giorgi" is written on the back of a photograph of the painting belonging to the Biblioteca Berenson at Villa I Tatti near Florence and coming from Bernard Berenson's files, indicating the panel's earliest known location. This was Berenson's customary abbreviation for the name of the Roman dealer Sangiorgi.
[3] The art collection of Achille Chiesa in Milan, inherited after his death by his son Achillito, was sold at the American Art Association Galleries in New York at various sales between 1925 and 1927. The NGA painting, however, which is not listed in the auction catalogues, must have been sold privately sometime earlier.
[4] According to Odoardo H. Giglioli, "Una pittura ignota di Fra Filippo Lippi," BdA, n.s. 6 (1925-1926): 553, the painting was brought to Florence for restoration. Records of the Florentine Soprintendenza dei Beni Artistici e Storici (pratica no. 630 of 27 January 1925) show that the panel, belonging to the dealer Tozzi, entered Italy in January 1925 and left for New York in March 1927. No records concerning this painting have been discovered in The Tozzi Archive, housed in The Onassis Library for Hellenic and Roman Art, Department of Greek and Roman Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
[5] See Berenson Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford, 1932: 288. Possibly the painting passed through various hands before entering, sometime around 1930, the Straus collection. The annotation on Berenson's photograph, cited in note 2, also records the Florence dealer Albrighi as owner.
[6] The painting was illustrated in 1934, in a partially cleaned state, in an advertisement of the Bachstitz Gallery in the December issue of The Burlington Magazine 65, xvi.
[7] See Robert Oertel, Fra Filippo Lippi, Vienna, 1942: 67.
[8] Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:263. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2061.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1925

  • Giglioli, Odoardo H. “Una pittura ignota di Fra Filippo Lippi.” Bollettino d’Arte 6 (1925-1926): 552, 553-559, repro.

1929

  • Lensi, Alfredo. Palazzo Vecchio. Milan and Rome, 1929: 58.

1932

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932: 288.

  • Berenson, Bernard. “Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo e la cronologia.” Bollettino d’Arte 26, no. 2 (August 1932): 52.

  • Berenson, Bernard. “Three Drawings by Fra Filippo Lippi.” Old Master Drawings 7 (September 1932): 17.

1936

  • Pudelko, Georg. “Per la datazione delle opere di Fra Filippo Lippi.” Rivista d’arte 18 (1936): 58.

1938

  • Berenson, Bernard. Drawings of the Florentine Painters, 3 vols. Chicago, 1938: 1:84; 2:no. 1387.

1941

  • Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 47, repro.

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 108-109, no. 536.

  • Pittaluga, Mary. “Note sulla bottega di Filippo Lippi – Parte 2.” L’Arte 11, no. 2 (1941): 72.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 250, repro. 132.

  • Oertel, Robert. Fra Filippo Lippi. Vienna, 1942: 67, fig. 59.

1944

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 28, color repro.

1945

  • [Borenius, Tancred]. “Editorial: The New Kress Gift to the National Gallery, Washington.” The Burlington Magazine 86, no. 504 (March 1945): 55, 56.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 36, repro.

1949

  • Pittaluga, Mary. Fra Filippo Lippi. Florence, 1949: 215-216, fig. 37.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 40-41, repro.

  • Davies, Martin. National Gallery Catalogues. The Earlier Italian Schools. London, 1951: 227.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 54, repro.

1961

  • Berenson, Bernard. I disegni dei pittori fiorentini, 3 vols. Milan, 1961: 1:132; 2:no. 1387.

1963

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School. 2 vols. London, 1963: 1:114.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 76.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:30, color repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 107, fig. 299.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 66, repro.

  • Degenhart, Bernhard, and Annegrit Schmitt. Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen 1300-1450, 1: Süd- und Mittelitalien. 4 vols. Berlin, 1968: 2, pt. 1:551-552.

  • Hendy, Philip. Piero della Francesca and the Early Renaissance. London and New York, 1968: 43.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 107, 646.

1973

  • National Gallery, London. Illustrated General Catalogue. London, 1973: 377.

1974

  • Collobi Ragghianti, Licia. Il libro de' disegni del Vasari. 2 vols. Florence, 1974: 1:60.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 196, repro.

  • Marchini, Giuseppe. Filippo Lippi. Milan, 1975: 96, 203, 207, cat. 16, figs. 32, 33.

1977

  • Levi d'Ancona, Mirella. The Garden of the Renaissance: Botanical Symbolism in Italian Painting. Florence, 1977: 80-81, 211-212.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:263-264; 2:pl. 179.

1980

  • Allegri, Ettore, and Alessandro Cecchi. Palazzo Vecchio e i Medici. Florence, 1980: xi.

1982

  • Fusco, Laurie. “An Unpublished Madonna and Child by Fra Filippo Lippi.” J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 10 (1982): 16 n. 40.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 87, no. 46, color repro.

  • Ruda, Jeffrey. “Flemish Painting and the Early Renaissance in Florence.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 47 (1984): 227.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 230, repro.

1986

  • Tozzini Cellai, Valeria. L’arte del Rinascimento: Filippo Lippi. Prato, 1986: 168, no. 36.

1987

  • Steinberg, Leo. “‘How Shall this Be?’ Reflections on Filippo Lippi’s Annunciation in London.” Artibus et Historiae 8, no. 16 (1987): 42 n. 5.

1989

  • Fossi, Gloria. Filippo Lippi. Florence, 1989: 8.

1991

  • Angelelli, Walter, and Andrea G. De Marchi. Pittura dal Duecento al primo Cinquecento nelle fotografie di Girolamo Bombelli. Milan, 1991: 184, no. 352.

1993

  • Ruda, Jeffrey. Fra Filippo Lippi: Life and Work with a Complete Catalogue. London, 1993: 71, 123, 397-398, 504, 506, pls. 231, 232.

  • Ames-Lewis, Francis. “Art in the Service of Family: The Aesthetic Taste of Piero ‘the Gouty’ de Medici.” In Andrea Beyer and Bruce Boucher, eds. Piero ‘il gottoso’ de’ Medici. Berlin, 1993: 210, fig. 2.

1995

  • Ames-Lewis, Francis. “Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, and the Early Medici.” In Francis Ames-Lewis, ed. The Medici and Their Artists. London, 1995: 120-122.

1997

  • Mannini, Maria Pia, and Marco Fagioli. Filippo Lippi: Catalogo completo. Florence, 1997: 99, cat. 19

1998

  • Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane. "Virgin/Virginity." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 2:905.

1999

  • Holmes, Megan. Fra Filippo Lippi, The Carmelite Painter. New Haven and London, 1999: 285 n. 127.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 395-400, color repro.

2005

  • Christiansen, Keith, ed. From Filippo Lippi to Piero della Francesca: Fra Carnevale and the Making of a Renaissance Master. Exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005: 188.

2010

  • Rowley, Neville. “Pittura di luce: La manière claire dans la peinture du Quattrocento.” Ph.D. Diss., Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2010: 145 n. 549, fig. 22

2013

  • "Vasari and the National Gallery of Art." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 48 (Spring 2013): 12, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q3618177

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