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The Annunciation
1450-3
68.6 x 152.7cm
egg tempera on panel
In Fra Filippo Lippi's painting Mary is shown accepting the news that she will bear the Christ child. Mary's head is bowed in an attitude of humility and acceptance. Between the figure of Mary and the angel Gabriel is an urn full of lilies - the lily often appears in annunciation scenes as a symbol of Mary's purity.
Mary is painted sitting in an enclosed garden. The enclosed garden, known as a hortus conclusus, was in art a symbol of Mary's sealed womb and perpetual virginity. The hortus conclusus here is shown as a small Italian garden of the kind the artist was probably familiar with.
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