The Recanati Annunciation by Lorenzo Lotto

The Recanati Annunciation by Lorenzo Lotto

The cat

Almost everyone remembers the cat. In the middle of the room, between the angel and the Virgin, a tabby cat has arched its back and is running away — startled, as any cat would be, by an angel suddenly appearing in the house. It is one of the most human details in the whole history of the Annunciation, and it tells us at once that this is a real room where something unexpected has happened.

Mary turns to us

Mary does not look at Gabriel. She has spun around toward the viewer, hands raised, face full of alarm, as if appealing to us. Gabriel kneels behind her holding a lily, and through the window God the Father leans down from a cloud. Lotto places the most solemn event in a tidy Italian bedroom, with a bed, a shelf, a towel and an hourglass.

Lotto’s restlessness

Lotto was a Venetian who spent much of his career in the Marches, painting for provincial patrons. His pictures are nervous, inventive and full of surprise, and he never found secure fame in his lifetime. This picture, still in Recanati, is now one of his best loved.

Where it hangs

The canvas is in the Museo Civico Villa Colloredo Mels in Recanati and measures 166 by 114 centimetres.

About this print

Made from a 3,489-pixel photograph of the original, enough to print sharply at up to about 23 inches on its longest side.

Sources: Museo Civico Villa Colloredo Mels, Recanati · Wikidata Q1994120 · Wikimedia Commons