The Annunciation
by PESELLINO, Tempera on wood, 19 x 13 cm (each panel)
This painting is one of the finest of the small-scale devotional works which genre Pesellino specialized in. A soft morning light pervades the scene, the mirrored attitudes of the figures, shown humbly kneeling with their heads inclined and the detailed description of the Virgin’s house result in a domestic intimacy. The influence of Filippo Lippi is recognizable, the model of the painting was an Annunciation painted by Lippi about two decades earlier.