This full-length polychromed wood sculpture depicts the Virgin Mary, clothed in a red dress embellished with gold stencilled motifs and long sleeves terminating in narrow gold cuffs. A sash cinches her waist. She holds a book in the fingers of her left hand, which she allows to drop naturistically to her thigh. Her right hand is raised to her chest, a gesture that suggests we are looking at the precise moment in which Mary, having risen from her reading, is greeted by the sudden arrival of the archangel Gabriel bearing the news that she is give birth to the Son of God. Her head tilts subtly to one side and her gaze is directed downwards in a modest contemplation. Her hair is tied up, with a small ponytail secured in place with a painted white headband. Her features are restrained, with elegant, elongated, and naturalistic proportions.
The Virgin Annunciate
Italy, Tuscany, Siena
c. 1500 150 x 53 x 27 cm
The Annunciation to the Virgin is amongst the most important and privileged themes of Christianity. It bespeaks not just the manifestation of Christ as a pure being upon the earth, but also the entire foundation of the New Church under his leadership and, of course, the subsequent salvation of mankind through his sacrifice. While in France sculptural groups depicting this subject matter were generally mounted on the facades and portals of great cathedrals and churches, in Italy they were far more commonly placed within the building’s interior spaces. As a result, a tradition of statuary executed in wood and adorned with rich polychromy flourished across the region.
Sienese sculptures of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries were particularly refined, and surviving examples are among the most celebrated images of their kind in art historical scholarship. Many of the greatest artists of the age produced versions of the theme, including Francesco di Valdambrino and Jacopo della Quercia. One variant, exemplified by a figure carved by Giovanni di Turino in the early fifteenth century, served as the predominant model for later generations (Petit Palais, inv. SDUT1612). It shows the Virgin with her right hand raised in front of her chest, wearing a full-length red dress with arm-length sleeves of the same fabric. Our sculptor, who seems to have been active in the city in the years around 1500,2 evidently drew his inspiration from earlier models such as this, embedding his work in the long tradition of imago lignea whose subtle iconographic and stylistic inflections had become carefully codified. Nonetheless, features such as the figure’s shot hip, which dynamically enlivens the line of her body and the tangible displacement of her weight from one leg to another, are extremely advanced and beautifully rendered. The same softened physiognomy and a similar sense of volume with which the figure’s dress is imbued, can be found on a slightly smaller Virgin Annunciate from a private collection which must emanate from the same workshop as the example under discussion.
