LIPPI, Fra Filippo
(b. 1406, Firenze, d. 1469, Spoleto)

The Annunciation

1435-40
Tempera on panel, 100 x 161 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington

This is an early version of the theme of Annunciation which Fra Filippo Lippi treated several times during his career. Lippi shows the figures caught in a diagonal shaft of light that falls across the back of the angel and illuminates the Virgin by passing through an open door notionally located behind a pilaster with engaged columns. The bilateral division of the Annunciation by a prominent architectural feature is a hallmark of Lippi's early work.