Tommaso Puccini

Italian, 1749 - 1811

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Separated by a vertical, column-like partition, a woman to our right kneels opposite a winged angel to our left, who also kneels and holds the stem of a long white lily propped against one shoulder in this horizontal painting. The upper corners are curved, suggesting the panel was set in an arched frame. Both people have pale, peachy skin with a yellow cast, delicate facial features, and starburst-like gold halos hovering over blond, curly hair. To our left, the angel faces our right in profile, one hand held to the chest as the other, resting on the raised knee, holds the stem of the lily. The angel wears a voluminous, lavender-purple robe tied in pleats at the waist with a gold cord. The neckline is marigold orange, and the cuffs and hem are edged with gold. The wings emerging from the shoulder blades are made of rounded, gold and blue feathers like the eyes of peacock feathers. A white dove hovers above the angel’s head and gold rays extend toward the woman, to our right. The woman kneels, facing our left in profile, her head bowed. A gauzy white head covering is tied around her hair. She holds the sides of her deep blue robe at her chest, over a coral-red dress. The hem of the blue robe is edged with gold lettering resembling writing. She clutches a small, thick book with a teal-blue cover and gold edges in one hand at her chest. The angel and woman are separated by a slate-gray, column or partition, and the room behind each person is slightly different. The angel is set in a room with stone-gray walls with a doorway on the back wall, and rectangular openings on the wall to our left. The salmon-pink floor spans both rooms, but is banded with gray along the bottom edge of the painting to our right. The woman is in a room with a bench and shelves holding a thick book and a pink flower in a glass vase. A darkened doorway opens, presumably into another room, opposite us. A curtain hangs down along the partition in front of the angel, perhaps indicating that a window separates them. The rays emanating from the dove also disappear behind the partition to reemerge on the other side, suggesting a window.
Fra Filippo Lippi, The Annunciation, c. 1435/1440, tempera on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1943.4.35

The Annunciation

Fra Filippo Lippi · c. 1435/1440 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1943.4.35

A dozen men and women approach or gather around a stone tomb in a church in this square painting. The people all have pale skin and wear robes in muted blue, sage green, apricot, dark pink, or vivid red. The rectangular tomb is supported on four columns, which are just taller than the people standing next to and under it. It sits in a curved apse, which is decorated with gold paintings or mosaics. In the quarter dome above, a person sits in an almond-shaped halo flanked by two people wearing royal blue and dark pink. Some of the scenes below and to the sides of the dome are hard to make out but one, to our left, shows a person wearing blue holding a baby, and another to our right is of a nearly nude person on a cross. Two people in front of the tomb raise hands to touch its bottom edge. Underneath the casket, one person supports another, who has swooned or fainted. A fifth person there peeks around the front, right column. Two women are on the six steps leading up to the tomb, and a man using a cane approaches from our right. His robes are pulled up over a red gash on his shin. At the bottom center of the picture, three men wearing knee-length tunics support each other, arms slung across each other’s shoulders. Another man carrying a crutch across one shoulder walks away from the tomb, to our left of this trio. Rows of tan stone columns topped by leafy capitals supporting vaulted arches comes toward us to either side of the tomb. One more person wearing monk’s robes is visible through the columns, near the right edge of the painting. The floor at the foot of the steps is petal pink.
Gentile da Fabriano, The Crippled and Sick Cured at the Tomb of Saint Nicholas, 1425, tempera on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.268

The Crippled and Sick Cured at the Tomb of Saint Nicholas

Gentile da Fabriano · 1425 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.268