The Angel of the Annunciation

Angel here, archangel next door

The same painter is represented in this catalogue by two annunciation entries a year apart, and the two titles rank their messenger differently. This one calls him simply the angel of the Annunciation. The other, dated 1505, calls him the Archangel Gabriel. Nothing in the record explains the difference, and it is almost certainly a matter of how each title was recorded rather than a claim about two beings — but the pair shows exactly how loosely the vocabulary of rank travels.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1506 and gives Gerard David, a Flemish painter, with Northern Renaissance as the style term. No dimensions are recorded. The measured colour family is turquoise. No location is recorded.

The only turquoise in the catalogue

Of the 224 works gathered here, this is the single entry whose measured palette registers as turquoise. That is a fact about the image file rather than about the subject, and it is the sort of measurement worth keeping separate from iconography. Eight titles in this catalogue name the Annunciation; four name Gabriel. Neither dimensions nor a location appears in this record.