The Annunciation
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Luke 1:26
The passage
And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
Luke 1:26
About this plate
A rough interior of beams and rafters, closer to a barn than a chamber. Mary kneels at the left beside a plain bench. Through the right side of the plate the angel comes in on the wing, trailing light, one arm extended. On the floor, jars and a bundle of straw.
Doré has staged it as an arrival rather than an audience. In most Annunciations the angel has landed and the two figures face each other across a tiled floor with a lily between them. Here the wings are still open and the light is still moving.
The verse is the dispatch note. And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth. Sent. The sentence is about an errand, and it names the month, the messenger and the town before it gets anywhere near Mary.
The room is the argument. Doré gives her no furniture worth the name, and puts the most elaborate thing in the picture — the angel — into a space with a dirt floor.
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