Annunciation, after Michelangelo

This engraving reproduces a presentation drawing by Michelangelo, probably of the late 1530s. Beatrizet's print, and at least two painted versions by Marcello Venusti, are the only known records of this design. The setting is unusually articulated as an interior space, with a series of frames that surround the top of the room, the back wall, and an impossibly narrow doorway. Rather than creating a sense of coherent perspective, these elements generate a surface pattern characteristic of Beatrizet. Because of the quality of this impression, therefore the strength of its contrasts, this pattern becomes dazzling.