15TH CENTURY

In his catalogue of English Medieval alabasters, Frances Cheetham identifies a group of panels depicting the Annunciation to which the present panel belongs. This group comprises some forty known examples, all of which date to circa 1430 to 1470. Cheetham discusses this group as Type D, noting its characteristics as: the bearded figure of God to the top left corner from whose mouth issues the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove; the kneeling Virgin, crowned and turning awkwardly in surprise, to the lower right beneath a castellated bed canapy; and the kneeling Gabriel on the same level as the Virgin to the lower left behind a banderole-wrapped lily (F. Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, Oxford, 1984, p. 162 and cat. no. 96-98). Further examples can be found in the British Museum, the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.