The Annunciation
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
unframed: 150 × 133.4 cm · framed: 176 × 159.5 × 9.5 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of the Hanna Fund
Accession Number
1950.251
Tags
About this artwork
Although Veronese is best known for his large-scale, pageant-like presentations, here the artist has taken the narrative of the Annunciation (the announcement of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and bear a son) and compressed the figures close to one another, creating a startling intimacy. According to a tradition established by the medieval writer Saint Bernard, Mary has been reading from the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah (7:14), "A young woman is with child and s...