Probably by Giannicola di Paolo, 'The Annunciation', late 15th century

The scene shows the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that she would conceive a son, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Ghost. Gabriel has just flown into the Virgin’s room, interrupting her reading of the scriptures; her book is on the carved wooden lectern behind her. This is decorated with the Latin words Ave Gratia, an abbreviation of Ave gratia plena – the first words that Gabriel spoke to Mary, which mean, ‘Hail, she who is full of grace’ (Luke 1: 28).

The archangel holds a lily, a traditional symbol of the Virgin’s purity, and points upwards to the golden rays which are directed towards Mary. These rays originally emanated from a dove, a symbol of the Holy Ghost. However, the picture was cut down before it entered our collection, removing the dove as well as part of the distant landscape visible through the open door. The upper corners were probably added at this stage, transforming the painting into a rectangle; originally, the diagonal upper edges would have met at an angle, making a pointed or gabled picture, or alternatively the picture may have been semi-circular. Pictures of these shapes usually formed the upper part of an altarpiece, or, may have been placed over a doorway, as was Lippi’s Annunciation.

Giannicola di Paolo, like fellow artist Perugino, was from the Umbrian town of Perugia. Vasari described him as a pupil of Perugino but it is possible he may simply have collaborated with him on occasion. His early paintings, like this one, show the impact of Perugino’s style: here, Giannicola has copied Perugino’s designs for the figures of the Virgin and Gabriel. Gabriel is identical to the archangel in Perugino’s Annunciation dated 1489 (Santa Maria Nuova, Fano); the figure of the Virgin is a direct copy of Perugino’s Virgin in the Albani Torlonia Altarpiece, dated 1491 (Museo di Villa Albani, Rome).

Technical analysis using infrared reflectography makes traces of dotted outlines visible in the underdrawing showing that Giannicola used a technique called pouncing – where the outlines of a drawing on paper are pricked with holes which are then dusted with charcoal to trace the image onto the panel. These simple outlines were not much altered or embellished after the transfer. This is significant – it means that Giannicola was sticking to the designs very rigidly, without much of his own creative intervention. The alteration in colour scheme suggests that he was working directly from drawings, rather than the paintings themselves. So whether or not he was trained by Perugino, he must have worked in his studio at some point: he clearly had access to Perugino’s original drawings, which he scaled up and used as the basis for his composition.