The Annunciation
Unknown Artist
- Art Funded
- 2006
- Dimensions
- Each panel: 89 x 29 cm
- Vendor
- Private trust
The Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary stand on plinths bearing the coats of arms respectively of Westminster Abbey and George Fascet, Abbot of Westminster from 1498 until his death in 1500.
The panels would have originally formed the wings or doors of an alterpiece, probably commissioned by Abbot Fascet for his private chapel in the Abbey. They are rare survivals of the destruction of religious art during the English Reformation. They are also known as the Cotehele Annunciation Panels.
Provenance
Commissioned by or for George Fascet, Abbot of Westminster from 1498 to 1500; unknown until 1875, when listed in an inventory of the collection of the Earls of Mount Edgcumbe at Cotehele House, Cornwall, in 1875; sold at auction to a private trust in 1975