The Annunciation

The Annunciation, painted around 1620 on copper and now in the Hermitage Museum, represents a technically unusual choice for Lanfranco, who worked predominantly in oil on canvas. Copper supports were favoured in seventeenth-century Italy for small-format devotional works intended for private use, their smooth, impermeable surface allowing exceptional detail and jewel-like colour saturation. The Annunciation — the archangel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she will bear the Son of God — was the foundational moment of the Incarnation narrative and among the most frequently commissioned devotional subjects. Lanfranco's 1620 treatment on copper suggests a work intended for intimate, personal devotion rather than public display, painted with the fine-pointed precision the copper support demands.

Painted on copper, the smooth, non-absorbent surface required a fundamentally different technique from canvas: thin, transparent glazes over a careful ground, fine brushwork capable of hair-thin detail, and a colour saturation impossible to achieve on more absorbent supports. The result typically has an enamel-like luminosity prized by collectors.