The support is a single vertically grained oak panel, 0.4-0.5 cm thick, and is bevelled at the top, bottom and right sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1519. The panel could have been ready for use by 1530, but a date in or after 1544 is more likely. The probably thin and smooth, light-coloured ground, as well as the paint layers, were applied up to the edges of the panel. Infrared reflectography revealed an underdrawing executed in brush in a wet medium of contour lines for the interior and the figures. The architecture in the background was somewhat altered in the final painting stage. Remarkably some underdrawn lines in the window which are visible to the naked eye, become almost invisible in infrared reflectography. The pictorial elements were left in reserve, and there are some minor ‘pentimenti’, such as the angel’s right hand which is larger in the finished painting than in the original design. The roughly applied paint is in general quite thin, apart from the sceptre and the decoration of the canopy, where impasto was used. The figures, for example the Virgin’s fingers, and the objects in the interior were emphasised with dark (black or dark brown) contour lines.

Fair. The original format of the panel has been changed; on the left side a small strip is removed. The vase in the lower right corner is over painted. Varnish is slightly discoloured and matte, especially in the retouches.

…; collection Cornelis Hoogendijk (1866-1911), The Hague, before 1902;¹¹Henkels 1993, pp. 161-62. from whom on loan to the museum (inv. no. C-904), 1907-11; donated to the museum from Hoogendijk’s estate, 1912; on loan to the Rijksmuseum Muiderslot, Muiden, 1912-49

Object number: SK-A-2592

Credit line: Gift of the heirs of C. Hoogendijk, The Hague

In this ‘Annunciation’ (Luke 1:26-38) the angel Gabriel is kneeling in a bedchamber beside the Virgin, who is looking up from her prayer book as the Holy Ghost descends to her.²²For the subject see Kirschbaum IV, 1972, cols. 422-37. Generally speaking, this type originated with Rogier van der Weyden, a case in point being ‘The Annunciation’ on the left wing of his ‘St Columba altarpiece’ in Munich.³³Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek; illustrated in ENP II, 1967, no. 49, pls. 70-72. Several iconographic elements seem to have lost their deeper meaning in the Rijksmuseum picture. For example, Gabriel’s words are not inscribed on the banderole curling around the sceptre, the vase of lilies standing for Mary’s virginity has become a vase of indeterminate flowers, and the bed, which was a symbol of the Virgin’s mystic marriage for Rogier and later artists, seems to be no more than a visual element as a result of its inconspicuous position.⁴⁴See Panofsky 1953, pp. 251-56, for the meaning of the bed or bedchamber in Annunciation scenes.

The weakening of the significance of individual objects and the coarse execution make it very likely that this is a copy, the original of which is as yet unknown. The indirect source is Dürer’s woodcut ‘Annunciation’ from the ‘Small Passion’ series of c. 1510.⁵⁵Bartsch X, 1980, p. 114, no. 19; Meder 1932, p. 134, no. 128. There are further similarities in composition, execution and palette to ‘Annunciation’ scenes by Cologne artists from the circle around Bartholomäus Bruyn the Elder, such as the one by an anonymous artist executed in a similarly coarse manner (fig. a).⁶⁶See also Bruyn’s ‘Annunciation’ in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne; coll. cat. Cologne 1990, pp. 81-83, pl. 46, with further examples. It seems not unlikely, then that the Rijksmuseum painting was made in Cologne. The execution and dendrochronology point to a date around 1550.
JN

1976, p. 653, no. A 2592 (as c. 1530)

J. Niessen, 2010, 'anonymous, The Annunciation, Germany, c. 1550', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20025868