The Annunciation is an oil-on-oak panel painting attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Hans Memling. Completed c. 1482, it was partially transferred to canvas in the 1920s and is today held in the Robert Lehman collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The panel shows the Virgin in a domestic interior, two attendant angels, the archangel Gabriel dressed in ecclesiastical robes, and a hovering dove representing the Holy Spirit. It expands upon the Annunciation wing of Rogier van der Weyden's c. 1455 Saint Columba altarpiece. According to the art historian Maryan Ainsworth, the work is a "startlingly original image, rich in connotations for the viewer or worshiper".
The iconography focuses on the Virgin's purity. Her swoon foreshadows the Crucifixion of Jesus, and the panel emphasises her role as mother, bride and Queen of Heaven. The original frame survived until the 19th century and was inscribed with a date believed to be 1482; modern art historians suggested the number's final digit was a nine, which would give a date of 1489. In 1847 Gustav Friedrich Waagen described it as one of Memling's "finest and most original works". In 1902 it was exhibited in Bruges at the Exposition des primitifs flamands à Bruges, after which it underwent cleaning and restoration. Philip Lehman bought it in 1920 from the Radziwiłł family who may have had it in their family since the 16th century; Antoni Radziwiłł discovered it on a family estate in the early 19th century. At that time it had been pierced through with an arrow and required restoration.
The Annunciation was a popular theme in late medieval European art, Mary acts as Theotokos, the God-bearer as affirmed in 431 at the Council of Ephesus; two decades later the Council of Chalcedon affirmed the doctrine of Incarnation – that Christ was of two natures (God and Man) – and her perpetual virginity was affirmed at the Lateran Council of 631. In Byzantine art, Annunciation scenes depict the Virgin enthroned and dressed in royal regalia. In later centuries she was shown in enclosed spaces: the temple, the church, the garden.
In Early Netherlandish art the Annunciation is typically set in contemporary domestic interiors, a motif and tradition established by Robert Campin, and followed by Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden. Neither Campin nor van Eyck went so far as to set the scene in a bedchamber, although the motif is found in van der Weyden's c. 1435 Louvre Annunciation and c. 1455 Saint Columba altarpiece in which the Virgin kneels by the nuptial bed, rendered in red made from costly pigments. Memling's depiction is nearly identical to van der Weyden's Columba Altarpiece.
The archangel Gabriel appears before Mary to announce that she will bear the Son of God. He is shown standing in a three-quarter view wearing a small jeweled diadem and dressed in vestments. He has a richly embroidered red-and-gold brocade cope, edged with a pattern of gray seraphim and wheels, over a white alb and amice. He holds his staff of office in one hand, and raises the other towards the Virgin. He bends his knees, honoring and acknowledging her as Mother of Christ and Queen of Heaven, and his feet are bare and positioned slightly behind hers.
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