Cleveland Museum of Art
The Annunciation
Albert BoutsLinkedCulture matchlcp-2a412bb3e070
- Date
- c. 1480
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Culture
- Netherlands, Leuven, 15th century
- Department
- Medieval Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 122338
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
The scene of the Annunciation to Mary that she will give birth to Christ is depicted here as a contemporary scene that may have been familiar to any viewer at the end of the 1400s. Mary is portrayed as an ordinary but wealthy woman who is interrupted by the Archangel Gabriel as she reads a book of hours. This type of book was enormously popular in the late Middle Ages as a prayer and devotional book, particularly among the wealthy, literate nobility, and city aristocracy. Netherlandish artists are known for their attention to lifelike detail: notice the sliver of landscape through the window at the left of this composition.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Bequest of John L. Severance
- Provenance
- Graf Sierstorpff, Driburg, Germany | April 19, 1887: [Sale: Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus, April 19, 1887, Berlin Germany, no. 106] | before 1912: Eugen Schweitzer (1888–1981), Berlin, Germany | -1915: (M. Knoedler & Company, New York, NY) | 1915-1942: John L. Severance (1863-1936), Cleveland, OH | 1942-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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