The Annunciation with Saint Francis and Saint Louis of Toulouse [far left panel]

The far-left panel of Cosimo Tura's Roverella Altarpiece survives as one of the better-preserved fragments of a polyptych that was one of the supreme achievements of Ferrarese Quattrocento painting. Commissioned by Bishop Bartolomeo Roverella, who died in 1476, the polyptych's completion may have been overseen by the family after his death. The far lateral panels of such altarpieces typically carried secondary saints whose presence reflected the patron's personal or institutional devotions. Tura's ability to animate even these lateral figures — figures that in lesser painters became decorative space-fillers — with psychological presence is among the defining characteristics of his genius. The fragment's value lies in what it tells us about the overall chromatic and compositional programme of an altarpiece now visible only in pieces.

The panel shares the Roverella Altarpiece's characteristic warm, amber-orange tonal ground beneath the upper layers, which gives flesh tones an unusual warmth by contrast with Tura's cool blue architectural and landscape elements. The saint's figure is silhouetted against an architectural niche whose pilasters carry Tura's idiosyncratic pseudo-antique ornamentation — decorative motifs that blend classical vocabulary with fantastical invention.