Title

The Annunciation

Weyden, Rogier van der [school of]

Generic classification

Object

Date

Century

Cultural context / style

Dimensions

Material

Technique

Iconography / Theme

Provenance

Current location

Inventory Number in Current Collection

Object history

The panel is currently part of the National Trust’s collection and is on display at Knightshayes Court in Tiverton, Devon. It appears to have remained in a convent of the Mojas in Segovia until the mid-19th century, and it is likely that when the Nativity Polyptych left that convent, this painting, along with the one now in a private collection, was separated from the ensemble.

According to the National Trust Collections online catalog, the panel was owned by Sir John Charles Robinson at an unspecified time. Sir Francis Cook, Baronet, purchased it from him in 1879, and it later passed to the firm Thomas Agnew & Sons in London. It subsequently belonged to Sir John Heathcoat Amory, who bequeathed it in 1972 to the Knightshayes Gardens Trust, its current location.

Description

An oil painting on panel depicting the interior of a typical 15th-century room in the Netherlands. The archangel Saint Gabriel approaches Mary from behind to tell her that God has chosen her to be the mother of His Son. The Virgin’s expression is somewhere between surprise and self-assurance, while the divine messenger seems to step back before the Mother of God. The scene follows the account in the Gospel of Luke (1:28–38), which has always been the basis for Christian depictions of the Annunciation, although the evangelist Matthew (1:20–25) recounts that the archangel appeared to Saint Joseph.

Every detail of the room is exquisitely rendered, from the rug to the book Mary is reading, without neglecting the landscape glimpsed through the open windows. The Virgin wears a blue dress—a color traditionally associated with her in depictions—and the messenger, which is the meaning of “angel,” is dressed entirely in white as befits a divine spirit.

We lack documentation regarding the painting’s authorship and date, but based on its formal characteristics, there is no doubt that it is a 15th-century work created in the Low Countries, following the style of Rogier van der Weyden. Furthermore, we know that the panel was part of a polyptych whose central scene is the Nativity, now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Together with another panel, The Circumcision—now in a private collection in Madrid—they were removed from the original work and followed different paths to their current locations.

Locations

• Unknown date

  convent

  Convent of Segovia, Segovia (Spain)

• 1879

  dealer/antiquarian

  Sir John Charles Robinson, London (United Kingdom) *

• 1879

  private collection

  Sir Francis Cook, Richmond (United Kingdom) *

• Unknown date

  dealer/antiquarian

  Thomas Agnew & Sons, London (United Kingdom) *

• 1972

  private collection

  Sir John Heathcoat Amory, Knightshayes Gardens Trust, Devon (United Kingdom) *

• 1972 - present

  palace

  Knightshayes Court, Tiverton (United Kingdom)