The Virgin of the Annunciation

There is no angel in this picture. Batoni painted only the Virgin, close up, at the moment after Gabriel has spoken. Her head is bowed, her eyes are lowered, and her fingers meet on her breast, the gesture painters used for her quiet acceptance of the message. A honey-coloured veil falls around her face against a dark ground, and a blue mantle covers her shoulder. The canvas is small, about 49 by 39 centimetres, a size made for prayer in a private room rather than for a church altar.

The Louvre dates it only broadly, to the second quarter of the 18th century, when Batoni was making his name in Rome. Its French life began in the auction rooms. It was probably the picture sold in Paris in July 1757, and perhaps the one sold there again in 1799.

Early in the 19th century it entered the national collections, and its first posting there was political. From about 1802 to 1815 it hung at the château of Saint-Cloud, west of Paris, which Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, had made his residence in 1802. After his fall it returned to the Louvre, which reopened as the royal museum, and it has been shown there since 1816.