Attributed to Jacopo da Ponte, called Jacopo Bassano

This pair of unpublished and unlined canvases depicts the Annunciation to the Virgin in luminous tones of pink, yellow and white, and in a style remarkably close to the work of Jacopo Bassano at the height of his career. Professor Peter Humfrey, to whom we are grateful, dates the pair to circa 1550-1555 and believes they once decorated organ shutters in a provincial church. In this period of Jacopo’s oeuvre, he was beginning to experiment with nocturnes, a theme which is suggested here by the darkness in the niche behind the angel Gabriel and the bright light of the dove of the Holy Spirit over the Virgin’s head. Though organ shutter doors were typically larger than the size of these canvases, the pairing of the Angel Gabriel on the left and the Virgin on the right was a common subject for organ shutters, and the unusual size may reflect their use on a smaller organ in a parish church. The stone niche settings behind each figure would create the illusion of real architectural elements when seen from below, and the way Gabriel’s foot and Mary’s drapery extend almost outside of the picture plane support this viewpoint as well.