Armario de la Plata

These small panels were painted around 1451 to cover a cupboard. The Medici had commissioned a cabinet to hold the silver votive offerings at Santissima Annunziata, one of the most revered churches in Florence, and Fra Angelico filled its doors with dozens of little scenes from the life of Christ, running from the Annunciation through to the resurrection. Each is roughly the size of a book. Fra Angelico was a Dominican friar as well as a painter, and he set the story out in clear, plain stages meant to be read almost like pages. He died in 1455 with the work not fully done, and other hands finished some of the panels from his drawings.