Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

Here is a splendid 15th century Annunciation from a Florentine triptych by Bicci di Lorenzo, now in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (on permanent loan from the  Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection). Notice the seraphim (fiery angels) in the peaks above each image. 

The centrality of the Crucifixion reminds us of the centrality of the Cross in the "collect" of the Angelus prayer:

Pour forth, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy grace into our hearts, 
that we to whom the Incarnation of Christ thy Son was made known by the message of an angel may, by his Passion and Cross, be brought to the glory of his Resurrection,
Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Triptych by Bicci di Lorenzo
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

This week's Annunciation is from a French Book of Hours, described by the website of the Huntington Digital Library in these terms:

Book of Hours, according to the use of Paris. Includes a calendar, pericopes of the Gospels, the Hours of the Virgin, Psalms, Hours of the Cross and of the Holy Spirit, the Office of the Dead and additional prayers. In Latin and French. ... Written in France in the middle of the fifteenth century. Written in a gothic book hand in 2 sizes. Twelve large illuminations in arched compartments with serrated tops, above 4 lines of script; the outer borders contain black ivy sprays with gold foliage, thin blue and gold acanthus leaves placed at the corners, various flowers and strawberries. The miniatures are: f. 28 (Hours of the Virgin), Annunciation; f. 40v (Lauds), Visitation; f. 53 (Prime), Nativity; f. 60 (Terce), Annunciation to the shepherds; f. 65 (Sext), Adoration of the Magi; f. 70 (None), Presentation in the temple; f. 75 (Vespers), Flight into Egypt; f. 83 (Compline), Coronation of the Virgin; f. 90 (Penitential psalms), David praying; f. 109 (Hours of the Cross), Crucifixion; f. 113 (Hours of the Holy Spirit), Pentecost; f. 117 (Office of the Dead), burial scene in a churchyard. Initials in 4 styles: 4- and 3-line initials (ff. 40v and 65) in gold- or white-brushed blue set on pink grounds, decorated with acanthus leaves picked out in gold; 4- and 3-line initials in white-patterned blue on gold grounds with colored trilobe leaves in the infilling; 3-line initials in white-patterned blue against gold-patterned red grounds with flowers set on the painted gold infillings; 2- and 1-line initials in gold on alternate pink grounds with blue infilling, or the reverse; ribbon line fillers in the same colors; initials within the text touched in yellow. Rubrics in a bright orange-red. Bracket borders in the same style of ivy sprays, gold motifs, acanthus and flowers, enclosing the text from the outer margin, occur on f. 13 (Gospel of John), f. 19 (Obsecro te), f. 23 (O Intemerata), f. 170v (the 15 Joys), and f. 177 (the 7 Requests). Band borders running the length of the text in the calendar and at the presence of 2-line initials; when applicable, they are traced from the recto to the verso. Bound by Capé in dark green morocco with red morocco doublures; gilt edges.

 

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 

Pieter Lastman's 1618 Annunciation (with its playful cat eyeing Mary's yarn!) hints at his stay in Rome, where Caravaggio was in the height of his career (corresponding to some particular depths of his life). Great in his own artistic contributions, the Dutch Lastman is best known as the teacher of Rembrandt van Rijn.

The painting now resides in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.