Virgin and Child enthroned; Annunciation

This tall panel comes from Florence in the early 1200s, a generation or two before Cimabue and Giotto, when Tuscan painting still followed Byzantine models and a face was a pattern of gold and line rather than flesh. Look below the enthroned Virgin, under the throne itself, where a narrow strip carries a separate scene. It is the Annunciation, and Mary holds a spindle and a distaff. That detail comes from the apocryphal gospels, which tell that she was spinning purple thread for the Temple veil when the angel Gabriel arrived. The painter is unknown and is called simply the Master of Greve, after the Tuscan town linked to his work. For a panel nearly 800 years old it has survived in remarkable condition, its gold ground still carrying the small distaff in her hand.