Annunciation

Under a delicate portico, an angel bows and Mary bends to accept her calling, while in a flowering garden Adam and Eve are driven out of Eden. Fra Angelico's Prado Annunciation holds the whole story of fall and rescue in one bright scene.

The story behind the painting

Fra Angelico, the friar Giovanni da Fiesole, painted this altarpiece in the 1420s for a side altar of the Convent of San Domenico in Fiesole, the house of observant Dominicans where he himself was a friar. For the same church he also made the main altarpiece and a Coronation of the Virgin now in the Louvre. The Annunciation stayed at San Domenico until 1611, when it was sold to the King of Spain and taken to Madrid, entering the Spanish royal collections and later the Museo del Prado. It is one of three altarpieces of the Annunciation by Fra Angelico, alongside those of Cortona and San Giovanni Valdarno. The order in which they were painted is uncertain, but art historians generally place the Prado version first. Wikidata dates it to 1425.

What to look for

The picture is divided into three parts: the garden on the left, the angel's arch and the Virgin's arch. Follow the lines of the light, perspective-drawn arches, which recall the architecture of Michelozzo, and you reach a vanishing point inside the house, drawing you toward the Annunciation itself. From the upper left a ray of divine light passes through the dove of the Holy Spirit to Mary, who bends in acceptance, seated on a richly draped seat with an open book on her knees. In the garden, look for carefully painted plants, among them a palm and red roses, and for the small figures of Adam and Eve being expelled. The light falls evenly from left to right across everything. Below, the predella holds five scenes from Mary's life.

Meaning and intent

The garden stands for Mary's virginity, the enclosed garden, and its plants carry meanings: the palm points to Christ's future martyrdom and the red roses to the blood of the Passion. Adam and Eve complete the thought. Their expulsion recalls humanity's fall, which is answered by the deliverance in Christ made possible by Mary's acceptance. Compared with the Cortona version, Fra Angelico here places the vanishing point inside Mary's home, which draws attention away from Adam and Eve and toward the meeting of angel and Virgin. The source notes that the angel looks more static, with more schematic folds, and may be the work of a collaborator.

Legacy

In the predella the painter worked more freely. Its Adoration of the Magi shows an innovative frontal arrangement, years before Botticelli's Adoration of 1475, set within the complex perspective of a ruined hut, and its Presentation in the Temple is placed inside a circular temple. Throughout, the source admires Fra Angelico's pure, crystal light, which models volumes, harmonises colour and unifies the scenes. Counted among his best-known works, the panel measures 162.3 by 191.5 centimetres and has hung in Madrid since the seventeenth century, first in the royal collections and now in the Prado.