Благовещение

Poussin spent almost his whole career in Rome, working slowly for a small circle of learned collectors, and by the mid-1650s he was the most admired painter that circle had. This Annunciation is stranger than most. Instead of the usual startled girl, his Virgin sits cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, her eyes shut and her arms flung open as she accepts what the kneeling angel has come to tell her, while the dove of the Holy Spirit hangs in a disc of light above. Some believe Poussin made it to mark the death of Cassiano dal Pozzo, the scholar and collector who had been his closest patron in Rome. At the foot of the picture he painted a small wooden plaque carrying his name.