The Virgin of the Annunciation

The Turin foundation that owns this small panel, the Fondazione De Fornaris, keeps two Virgins of the Annunciation from the 1820s. This one is by Francesco Hayez, painted around 1824 on a panel 48 by 39.5 centimetres. The other is by Pelagio Palagi, and its panel matches the size of the foundation's Hayez angel Gabriel almost to the centimetre, while Hayez's own Virgin is more than ten centimetres shorter. The two painters had known each other for years. In Rome in 1813 the young Hayez had helped the older Palagi decorate the Palazzo Torlonia, and in the 1820s both were working in Milan, where Hayez put Palagi into a self-portrait with a group of his friends painted in those same years.