DescriptionOne of the most celebrated paintings in the Robert Lehman Collection, this jewel-like representation of the Annunciation is set in an architectural interior constructed according to a rigorous system of one-point perspective. The panel was almost certainly commissioned as a private devotional image, not as part of a larger structure. While the identity of the patron is not known, the work was in the famed Barberini collection in Rome in the seventeenth century.

ProvenancePalazzo Barberini, Rome; E. Volpi, Florence; exported from Italy, July 1905 (dated customs stamp on reverse of panel); Oscar Huldschinsky, Berlin, from 1906; Huldschinsky sale, Cassirer and Helbing, Berlin, May 10–11, 1928, no. 54; bought by Böhler and Steinmeyer for Robert Lehman.