Henry Ossawa Tanner: The Annunciation (1898)

(Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA)

A painting made by the African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859 – 1937). Tanner specialized in landscapes, religious subjects, and scenes of daily life. This piece shows the archangel Gabriel and Mary during the Annunciation. The story is narrated in Luke 1:26–38, in which Gabriel tells Mary that she will bear Jesus, the Son of God. Tanner created an unconventional image of the moment when the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear the Son of God. Mary is shown as an adolescent dressed in rumpled Middle Eastern peasant clothing, without a halo or other holy attributes. Gabriel appears only as a shaft of light. Painting from 1898.