The Virgin Annunciate: Right Pinnacle

The Virgin Annunciate: Right Pinnacle

The Virgin Mary is seated in front of a cloth of honour, her hands crossed on her chest. The Holy Ghost, represented by a white dove, seems to shoot out at her from the left hand side: he has been sent by God to impregnate her with Christ.

This panel comes from the top of a large polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) painted in the early 1420s by the Florentine painter Giovanni dal Ponte for the high altar of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Pratovecchio in Tuscany. Other panels from it are also in the National Gallery – it’s one of the few almost complete early Renaissance altarpieces in the collection.