The Annunciation
Alessandro Vittoria (Italian, 1525–1608)
c. 1583
- Medium
- Bronze
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 101.3 × 61.3 × 9.6 cm (39 7/8 × 24 1/8 × 3 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Venice
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Alessandro Vittoria translated into bronze the flickering light of Venetian Renaissance paintings. Working in wax (from which the finished bronze was then cast), he manipulated this relief’s form and edges to catch the light. The result is a highly animated surface in which figures, drapery, clouds, and sky seem to move with excitement, heightening the drama of the archangel Gabriel’s announcement that Mary will bear God’s son. Fully sculpted in the round, the archangel’s arm points to the scene’s smallest feature: a dove, representing the Holy Spirit.
This sculpture was commissioned by Hans Fugger, a member of a prominent Augsburg banking family, to decorate an altarpiece for the chapel of his family’s castle.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
