Portrait of Maria Bonciani (on the reverse: the annunciation: the angel Gabriel)

This is Maria Bonciani, wife of the Florentine merchant Pierantonio Baroncelli, painted kneeling in prayer on one wing of a small folding altarpiece the couple commissioned in Bruges. The interesting part is the back. Her wing and her husband's were made to fold shut, and their outer faces together form a single scene, the Annunciation, done in grey to look like carved stone. On her side stands the angel Gabriel; on his, the Virgin Mary. Closed, the greeting crossed the seam between the two wings, the angel on Maria's panel turning toward the Virgin on Pierantonio's.