Annunciation

This painting, signed and dated 1818, is one of a series of Marian subjects ordered from the Nazarenes by the canon of Dresden’s cathedral. Its Roman execution is attested to by St. Peter’s dome, rising in the background. Stiff, precise, with a loving re-creation of Albertian perspective, this archaising Annunciation merges Northern European and Italian fifteenth-century motifs in an ingratiating pastiche.