Annunciation

This Annunciation was painted in Venice around the middle of the 16th century by Girolamo Dente, a painter better known by his working name, Girolamo di Tiziano, 'Girolamo of Titian,' after the years he spent as Titian's assistant. The subject is the moment the angel Gabriel comes to Mary to tell her she will bear Christ, the instant a whole religious history is set in motion by a greeting. It was among the most repeated scenes in Venetian painting, and a picture made this close to Titian's workshop carries the warm colour and soft handling of that circle, even from a hand that spent much of its career finishing other men's designs. Little firm detail survives about who ordered this particular version or where it first hung.