"The Madonna of the Healed: [Re]framing An Annunciation Panel Painting in Aversa" (original) (raw)

Presented at the The Courtauld's 26th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Student Colloquium Display and Displacement in Medieval Art and Architecture, 19 February 2021. See PDF for Speaker Abstracts and Biographies; recording available at https://courtauld.ac.uk/event/cfp-display-and-displacement-in-medieval-art-and-architecture The Annunciation altarpiece panel in the church of Santissima Annunziata in Aversa is frequently touted as a paradigmatic example of late medieval painting in the Kingdom of Naples. Dated to 1419, the work’s various imported details are used to characterize an eclectic “international gothic” regional style. The image published in most studies, however, is small, black and white, and difficult to see. Curiously, when viewed in situ, the painting’s ostensibly cosmopolitan features are equally elusive. Encased above the church’s inlaid marble main altar behind a thick pane of glass in a gilded hexagonal frame, the Annunciation is only visible for its proliferation of gold leaf and the bold blue and pink of Mary and Gabriel’s vestments. Despite its elaborate display, scholars perpetually displace the art from its sacred setting. This paper recontextualizes the panel in Aversa, considering the evolution of its enshrinement to reveal a previously overlooked aspect of local painting in late medieval Naples.