The Annunciation to Mary

In the mid-1740s Paul Troger took on a ceiling outside Austria, in Győr in western Hungary, where the Jesuits had him fresco their church of Saint Ignatius. This small canvas is his design for the Annunciation over the nave. The painted border with its curved corners gives the shape of the ceiling field, and the scene is built to be read from far below.

Mary kneels on a flight of steps at the very bottom, almost against the frame. Above her the sky opens in banks of cloud crowded with angels, and the archangel Gabriel floats in the middle with a lily in his hand.

The Jesuits did not keep the church for long. Their order was dissolved in 1773, and since 1802 the building has belonged to the Benedictines, with Troger's Annunciation still on the vault.