Kneeling in a rocky landscape, his cloak billowing behind him and an olive branch in his hand, the archangel Gabriel delivers the news of Mary’s miraculous pregnancy. In its original context, this painting faced a separate panel, also in LACMA’s collection, in which the Virgin, seated on a decorative gold cushion, pauses from her reading as she receives word that she will be the mother of God (see M.44.2.2). Together, these panels form a pivotal scene from the Christian Gospels: the Annunciation. In Bartolo di Fredi’s interpretation of the scene, settings are kept to a minimum: Gabriel and Mary fill and almost overwhelm their frames, while a solid gold background emphasizes each figure’s holiness. Bartolo’s composition takes inspiration from Simone Martini’s famous Annunciation (1333), which at the time was housed in Siena’s cathedral above the altar of Saint Ansanus, where Bartolo was likely to have seen and admired it. Gabriel’s olive branch reinforces the Sienese provenance. Sienese artists preferred the olive branch to the more commonly used lily in Annunciation depictions, as the lily was a symbol of Siena’s rival city-state Florence.
LACMA’s panels were once part of an altarpiece made by Bartolo for the church of San Francesco in Montalcino, just outside of Siena. Although now dismantled and dispersed—with extant pieces preserved in the Palazzo Municipale in Montalcino and the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena—the elaborate altarpiece consisted of scenes from the Virgin’s life set under decorative architectural forms and punctuated by vertical pilasters featuring standing saints. The pointed engaged frames of our Annunciation panels suggest that they were pinnacles set at the top of the altarpiece, likely flanking the central scene of the Coronation of the Virgin. It was common in medieval art to divide Annunciation scenes, which helped create balanced compositions across the popular multipaneled polyptychs.
2024
