Getty Museum

The Annunciation

Simon Bening

Date: about 1525–1530
Medium: Tempera colors, gold paint, and gold leaf
Culture: Flemish
Department: Manuscripts
Institution: Getty Museum

Seated on a low stool with her arms folded in a gesture of humility, the Virgin gazes piously at a prayer book opened on her lap. Into this quiet scene of domestic tranquility enters the angel Gabriel to tell Mary that she will bear the son of God. Floating in the air, suspended between heaven and earth, Gabriel points up toward the light of the Holy Spirit, which fills the room with divine illumination. Thus Simon Bening movingly and masterfully represented God taking on human flesh and the realm of the spirit opening up into the everyday world.

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Creator

Simon Bening

Flemish Illuminator · 1483–1561

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Artist

One of the most celebrated painters of Flanders in the 1500s, Simon Bening was hailed by Portuguese art critic Francisco da Hollanda as the greatest master of illumination in all of Europe. In addition to producing books for powerful aristocrats such as Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, Bening worked for a group of international royal patrons including Emperor Charles V and Don Fernando, the Infan