The Annunciation

In the 1560s Crete belonged to Venice, and painters in its capital, Candia, made icons for Orthodox and Catholic buyers alike, often picking up Western compositions from printed engravings. This small panel, about 24 by 18 centimetres, shows the young Domenikos Theotokopoulos doing exactly that. His Annunciation follows an engraving by the Italian printmaker Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio, which was itself based on a design by Titian. Scholars still debate whether he painted it in Crete shortly before sailing, or soon after reaching Venice around 1567. The panel is one of six scenes on a portable folding altarpiece, and it sits on the back, beside a view of Mount Sinai. The gilded arch across the top belongs to the altarpiece's own frame. It came to Modena in 1805 from the Obizzi collection at the Catajo castle near Padua, and lay unrecognised in the gallery's storerooms until 1937, when the art historian Rodolfo Pallucchini identified it by its Greek signature, meaning by the hand of Domenikos.