Annunciation. Annunciation is a painting attributed to the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dating from circa 1472-1475.
It is housed in the Uffizi gallery of Florence, Italy. Leonardo da Vinci might have been finished the Annunciation in his early twenties.
The subject matter is drawn from Luke 1.26-39 and depicts the angel Gabriel, sent by God to announce to a virgin, Mary, that she would miraculously conceive and give birth to a son, to be named Jesus, and to be called the Son of God whose reign would never end. The subject was very popular for artworks and had been depicted many times in the art of Florence, including several examples by the Early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico.
The details of its commission and its early history remain obscure. In 1867, following Gustav Waagen methods, Baron Liphart identified this Annunciation, newly arrived in the Uffizi Gallery from a convent near Florence, as by the young Leonardo, still working in the studio of his master Verrocchio.
The painting has since been attributed to different artists, including Leonardo and Verrocchio's contemporary Domenico Ghirlandaio. The angel holds a Madonna lily, a symbol of Mary's virginity and of the city of Florence. It is supposed that Leonardo originally copied the wings from those of a bird in flight, but they were lengthened by a later artist. When the Annunciation came to the Uffizi in 1867, fr