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Giovanni di Paolo's Annunciation is believed to be one of five predella panels that belonged to the lower portion of a large, as yet unidentified, Sienese altarpiece. The central area of the panel shows the most important part of the painted narrative -- the Archangel Gabriel announcing the impending birth of the Christ Child to the Virgin Mary. Outside her elegant Italian Gothic house, a lush garden reflects the spring season of the Annunciation. The fertile landscape also provides an appropriate setting for the secondary representation at the left -- Adam and Eve's dramatic expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Giovanni used the figure of God the Father, who occupies the celestial realm in the upper left corner, to link the Expulsion to the Annunciation. God both points out the exiled couple's disgrace and looks ahead toward the Annunciation in anticipation of divine redemption. Finally, at the right, Joseph warms his hands at a fireplace, symbolic of Jesus' future birth in the winter.


Disregarding naturalistic detail in favor of flat, decorative pattern, Giovanni was nevertheless aware of current Renaissance experiments in linear perspective, as exemplified by the receding floor tiles in both the central loggia and Joseph's cubicle. The artist's decision, however, not to follow realistic spatial and scale relationships completely, and his use of willowy, elegantly dressed figures, place him firmly within the medieval pictorial tradition, now reappearing as the International Style.

Details

  • Title: The Annunciation and Expulsion from Paradise
  • Creator: Giovanni di Paolo
  • Date Created: c. 1435
  • Physical Dimensions: overall: 40 x 46.4 cm (15 3/4 x 18 1/4 in.) painted surface: 38.7 x 44.7 cm (15 1/4 x 17 5/8 in.) framed: 54.93 x 58.74 x 6.99 cm (21 5/8 x 23 1/8 x 2 3/4 in.)
  • Provenance: Sir William John Farrer, London, by 1866;[1] purchased in or before 1868 by Sir John Charles Robinson [1824-1913], London;[2] (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 19 April 1902, no. 73); purchased by (Charles Fairfax Murray [1849-1919], London and Florence) for Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-1943] Benson, London and Buckhurst Park, Sussex;[3] sold 1927 with the Benson collection to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[4] sold May 1936 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1939 to NGA. [1] The panel is cited under this location by Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, _A New History of Painting in Italy, from the II to the XVI Century_, 3 vols., London, 1864-1866: 3:80 n. 6. See also Tancred Borenius, _Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16 South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex Collected by Robert and Evelyn Benson_, London, 1914: 13. Farrer is recorded by Gustav Friedrich Waagen, _Treasures of Art in Great Britain_, 3 vols., London, 1854: 2:338, among other "picture dealers in London." Waagen does not, however, mention NGA 1939.1.223. [2] See J.C. Robinson, _Memoranda on Fifty Pictures_, London, 1868: 2. [3] See Fern Rusk Shapley, _Catalogue of the Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:224. It is known that Murray acted frequently as agent for Robert H. Benson; this must have been the case also at the Robinson sale. In fact, Benson's notes on the painting's history read: "Bought at Christie's after a contest with G. Salting" (transcript provided in 1976 by his grandson, Peter Wake, and in NGA curatorial files). "G. Salting" was George Salting, owner of another well-known collection of early Italian paintings in London. [4] See Robert Langton Douglas, "I dipinti senesi della collezione Benson passati da Londra in America." _Rassegna d'Arte Senese e del Costume_ 1/5, no. 3 (May-June 1927): 103, and also Edward Fowles, _Memories of Duveen Brothers_, London, 1976: 183. [5] The Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale of thirteen paintings and one sculpture, including NGA 1939.1.223, is dated 18 May 1936; the provenance is given as "Benson Coll'n" (copy in NGA curatorial files; Box 474, Folder 5, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2064.
  • Medium: tempera on panel

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