Early European Print : The Annunciation

Early European Print

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Impression on paper depicting the Annunciation. The Archangel Gabriel, vested as a deacon in alb, stole, and dalmatic, with wings of peacock's feathers, kneels at the entrance of a chamber paved with tiles, the vaulted roof of which rests on a slender column. A scroll with the angelic salutation, 'ave gracia plena dominus te' winds around the column. To the right kneels the Virgin Mary, who rests her left hand on a book, which bears the partly legible inscription 'ecce anc la dni'. On a shelf over the desk, covered with a cloth, on which the book lies, stands a lily in a vase. Through an inner arch a second chamber, with flat ceiling and rectangular rather than arching windows. The wall beneath the two round-headed windows of the outer chamber is hung with brocade, showing a leaf pattern upon a black ground. Through the outer arch, over Gabriel's head, the transmission of the Holy Ghost made manifest by the Dove on three beams of light emanates from the mouth of God the Father. The whole framed in a double border.</p>