The Annunciation and Expulsion from Paradise

c. 1435

Giovanni di Paolo

Painter, Sienese, c. 1403 - 1482

This nearly square painting is visually divided into three vertical zones, with a pergola-like structure occupied by two people at the center taking up the most space, and narrower scenes with more people to either side. All the people have light, peachy skin tinged in some areas with pale green. The central structure has a shallow roof and several types of arched openings—some rounded and some pointed, all of different sizes. A winged angel to the left under the structure has curly blond hair and wears a shell-pink, floor-length robe. A seated woman to our right wears a lapis-blue dress and a white head covering. She sits with her forearms crossed over her chest, her hands in front of her shoulders. Both have plate-like, gold halos. Two arched openings at the back of the structure lead into rooms beyond. In the left quarter of the painting, a nude man and woman are pushed through an arched gateway by a winged angel with a gold halo. A bearded, haloed man looks down from a gold cloud above. Forest-green trees line the garden at the back and flowers and rabbits fill the space around the people’s feet. To our right, a balding, bearded man warms his hands at a fire in a room beyond the central structure. He wears rose pink and has a gold halo.

Media Options

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Giovanni di Paolo's Annunciation is believed to be one of five predella panels that belonged to the lower portion of a large, as yet unidentified, Sienese altarpiece. The central area of the panel shows the most important part of the painted narrative -- the Archangel Gabriel announcing the impending birth of the Christ Child to the Virgin Mary. Outside her elegant Italian Gothic house, a lush garden reflects the spring season of the Annunciation. The fertile landscape also provides an appropriate setting for the secondary representation at the left -- Adam and Eve's dramatic expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Giovanni used the figure of God the Father, who occupies the celestial realm in the upper left corner, to link the Expulsion to the Annunciation. God both points out the exiled couple's disgrace and looks ahead toward the Annunciation in anticipation of divine redemption. Finally, at the right, Joseph warms his hands at a fireplace, symbolic of Jesus' future birth in the winter.

Disregarding naturalistic detail in favor of flat, decorative pattern, Giovanni was nevertheless aware of current Renaissance experiments in linear perspective, as exemplified by the receding floor tiles in both the central loggia and Joseph's cubicle. The artist's decision, however, not to follow realistic spatial and scale relationships completely, and his use of willowy, elegantly dressed figures, place him firmly within the medieval pictorial tradition, now reappearing as the International Style.


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 40 × 46.4 cm (15 3/4 × 18 1/4 in.)
    painted surface: 38.7 × 44.7 cm (15 1/4 × 17 5/8 in.)
    framed: 54.93 × 58.74 × 10.16 cm (21 5/8 × 23 1/8 × 4 in.)

  • Accession

    1939.1.223


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Sir William John Farrer, London, by 1866;[1] purchased in or before 1868 by Sir John Charles Robinson [1824-1913], London;[2] (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 19 April 1902, no. 73); purchased by (Charles Fairfax Murray [1849-1919], London and Florence) for Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-1943] Benson, London and Buckhurst Park, Sussex;[3] sold 1927 with the Benson collection to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[4] sold May 1936 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] The panel is cited under this location by Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, A New History of Painting in Italy, from the II to the XVI Century, 3 vols., London, 1864-1866: 3:80 n. 6. See also Tancred Borenius, Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16 South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex Collected by Robert and Evelyn Benson, London, 1914: 13. Farrer is recorded by Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, 3 vols., London, 1854: 2:338, among other "picture dealers in London." Waagen does not, however, mention NGA 1939.1.223.
[2] See J.C. Robinson, Memoranda on Fifty Pictures, London, 1868: 2.
[3] See Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:224. It is known that Murray acted frequently as agent for Robert H. Benson; this must have been the case also at the Robinson sale. In fact, Benson's notes on the painting's history read: "Bought at Christie's after a contest with G. Salting" (transcript provided in 1976 by his grandson, Peter Wake, and in NGA curatorial files). "G. Salting" was George Salting, owner of another well-known collection of early Italian paintings in London.
[4] See Robert Langton Douglas, "I dipinti senesi della collezione Benson passati da Londra in America." Rassegna d'Arte Senese e del Costume 1/5, no. 3 (May-June 1927): 103, and also Edward Fowles, Memories of Duveen Brothers, London, 1976: 183.
[5] The Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale of thirteen paintings and one sculpture, including NGA 1939.1.223, is dated 18 May 1936; the provenance is given as "Benson Coll'n" (copy in NGA curatorial files; Box 474, Folder 5, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2064.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1904

  • Exhibition of Pictures of the School of Siena, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1904, no. 30, as The Annunciation.

1910

  • Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1910, no. 1, as The Annunciation.

1927

  • Loan Exhibition of the Benson Collection of Old Italian Masters, City Art Gallery, Manchester, 1927, no. 100.

Bibliography

1914

  • Borenius, Tancred. Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16 South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex Collected by Robert and Evelyn Benson. London, 1914: no. 9.

1941

  • Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 37, repro.

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 84, no. 334.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 246, repro. 118.

1944

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 24, repro.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 41, repro.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 29-30, repro. 22.

1952

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 26, color repro.

1956

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 14, repro.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): 53, fig 19, pl. 153.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 44, repro.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 16, color repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 299, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 59.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:14, color repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 148, fig. 402, 404.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 51, repro.

  • Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 10-11, 21, color repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central and North Italian Schools, 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:182.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 154, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:223-224; 2:pl. 151.

  • Sutton, Denys. "Robert Langton Douglas. Part I." Apollo 109 (April 1979): 304 [58] fig. 18.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 80, no. 31, color repro., as by Giovanni di Paolo

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 178, repro.

  • Ford, Brinsley. "Pictures lost to the Nation." NACF Magazine 29 (Christmas 1985): 17.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1992: 14, repro.

1993

  • Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 408.

1997

  • Shaw-Eagle, Joanna. "Christ's Birth Gave Birth to Astounding Images: Gallery Glitters with holy Masterpieces." Washington Times (December 21, 1997): D5, repro.

1998

  • Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane. "Virgin/Virginity." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Chicago, 1998: 2:905.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 325-332, color repro.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: inside front flap, 18, no. 12, color repros.

Wikidata ID

Q20173550


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