Anthony of Padua, The Annunciation

16th century
Fresco
Church of St. Roch, Draguć, Croatia

Framed by a mandorla, Mary prays on her beads at the center of the composition, with the angel displaced to the left and significantly reduced in size. The setting is out of doors, with trees and buildings in the background and a huge pot of greenery on the right.

All in all, this is a most unusual Annunciation, apparently drawing on a diversity of sources. The trees and buildings may reflect earlier works such as this one that used trees and buildings to refer to the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew's inception of the episode at an outdoor fountain. The beads could reflect another part of Pseudo-Matthew where Mary is said to be "always engaged in prayer." And the pot recalls the small flower-pots seen in so many Western Annunciations.

In the foreground a greyhound chases a brown animal that was probably identifiable as a hare before that area of the fresco deteriorated. Our page on hare symbolism discusses "hare coursing" in medieval religious art.

View this image in full resolution.
Read more about images of the Annunciation.

• Home Page
• Iconography of the Annunciation
• This Page

Photographed at the church by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.