A garden with a rule

The enclosed garden is a stable convention in Northern painting, a setting whose meaning is fixed by long usage rather than by anything visible in a particular panel. Set inside it, two angels attend rather than announce: no message is named in the title, no rank is assigned, no individual identified. The garden supplies the frame and the angels supply the court.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1480 and gives Hans Memling, a Flemish painter, with Northern Renaissance as the style term. The recorded dimensions are 37.7 x 27.7 cm. The measured colour family is red. The location on record is Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

A small panel in a large museum

The recorded dimensions put this among the smaller entries in the catalogue, and its recorded home is one of six works here held at the Prado. Size and setting agree: a picture at this scale was made to be looked at from close range by one person, which is the format in which the attending-angel formula does most of its work. Thirty-seven titles in this catalogue name the Virgin or the Madonna.