The Annunciation: Mary (front) and Gabriel (back) Ceramic Ornament

The Annunciation was an immensely popular subject in the art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. As a two-person composition, the subject lent itself to use on the outer leaves of triptychs: the angel on one leaf; Mary, on the other. A triptych is an artwork—most often a panel painting—that is comprised of three parts hinged together in such a way that it can be displayed open or folded shut. + Here, Filippo Lippi (1406-1469) has painted the Annunciation in tempera on wood in warm pinks, salmons, and reds and in both brilliant and dark blues. In the full-length paintings, both figures stand in their narrow respective spaces, the Archangel Gabriel bowing slightly to the gentle and sweetly featured Maiden Mary. + With text of the prayer "Hail, Mary!" in English between portraits of the principals + Feast of the Annunciation: March 25 + Image Credit (M 038): Details of an antique image of The Annunciation by Filippo Lippi (1406-1469) from a late 19th-early 20th-century postcard in chromolithography, originally published by E. Sborgi, Florence, Italy, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera. The original panels from a polyptych of unknown origin are in the Filippo and Filippino Room of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The Annunciation forms the upper halves of the two leaves while SS. Anthony Abbott and John the Baptist appear on the lower left and lower right, respectively.