Madonna from the Annunciation Scene by Simone Martini

Madonna from the Annunciation Scene by Simone Martini. Virgin Mary is depicted against the golden background, her head brewed, she listening calmly to the words of Archangel Gabriel who brought her the evangel telling her that she is to give birth to the Saviour of the human race. Seated on a cushion, Simone's Madonna is the very embodiment of elegant femininity. Here the artist sought to embody not the physical but the spiritual in the appearance of Mary. Her figure seems to have no corporeal volume and rather looks like a silhouette against the warm reddish gold ground. This painting was once the right-hand wing of a folding diptych showing the Annunciation. The left wing, with its image of the Archangel Gabriel, is now in the National Gallery in Washington The masterpiece came to the Hermitage Museum in 1911 from the collection of russian noble Stroganov family.

Simone Martini was one of the leading late-Gothic (Proto-Renaissance) masters. His works are marked by refined colour and linear rhythms, a wealth of ornament and graceful figures.