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The Annunciation
Albert Bouts (Netherlandish, 1451/55–1549)
c. 1480
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 75.2 x 69 x 8.5 cm (29 5/8 x 27 3/16 x 3 3/8 in.); Unframed: 50.2 x 41.5 cm (19 3/4 x 16 5/16 in.)
- Culture
- Netherlands, Leuven, 15th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Medieval Art
- Credit line
- Bequest of John L. Severance
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The scene of the Annunciation to Mary that she will give birth to Christ is depicted here as a contemporary scene that may have been familiar to any viewer at the end of the 1400s. Mary is portrayed as an ordinary but wealthy woman who is interrupted by the Archangel Gabriel as she reads a book of hours. This type of book was enormously popular in the late Middle Ages as a prayer and devotional book, particularly among the wealthy, literate nobility, and city aristocracy.
