Tapestry with the Annunciation

Art Historical Context

In the early fifteenth century, South Netherlandish weavers produced large wool hangings to bring sacred history into churches and wealthy homes. This tapestry presents the Annunciation, the instant when the archangel Gabriel delivers God’s message that Mary will bear the Christ child, an event long awaited as the start of redemption. The design places Gabriel in a dense garden on the left and Mary inside a paneled chamber on the right, the two realms divided by a slender column bearing Gabriel’s spoken words. That vertical break turns the greeting itself into a physical barrier the viewer must cross, while God the Father and attendant angels hover above, sending the dove downward. Woven around 1410–20 from wool warp with wool and a few metallic wefts, the tapestry belongs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Look closely at the small potted lilies set on the checkered floor just below Mary’s bench; their tight white buds, rendered in fine weft threads, reward attention with the quiet precision of their stems and the faint metallic glints along the leaves.