The Virgin Annunciate

The Virgin Mary kneels at an antique half-column decorated with bucrania and swags, a symbol of the pagan world vanquished by the arrival of Jesus Christ. Mary looks up with astonishment from her reading, indicating that the angel Gabriel may once have been part of the sheet before it was cut down. The artist, probably Lazzaro Bastiani, drew the drapery with elegant simplicity. Subtle patterns of light fall across the Virgin's form, highlighting the folds and pleats in her robe. He used tightly executed washes, modeled with the point of the brush and rendered as hatching in the areas of halftone, such as on the side of the column.