Annunciation

Nobody knows which church this was made for. It is an oil sketch, a small trial version of an altarpiece, and its arched top gives the shape of the large canvas it was preparing. Scholars have linked it to several projects, from an Annunciation for a church in Todi in 1750 to a lost altarpiece in Naples, years in which the painter moved from Rome to the Spanish court and back to Naples. So the museum dates it only between 1750 and 1766. When it was bought in 1915 the gallery's director credited Giaquinto, later writers passed it to a younger Neapolitan painter, and in 1958 the critic Mario D'Orsi gave it back to Giaquinto. The Virgin's rose-coloured dress is picked up in the angel's sash and on one of the cherubs above. On the floor lie a basket of cloth and a green cushion, beside an empty chair.