The Annunciation

Robert Campin's Annunciation at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, painted around 1420, sets the sacred scene within a detailed bourgeois interior that was revolutionary for its time. Campin's placement of holy figures in recognizable domestic settings transformed the relationship between viewer and sacred image in Northern European art. Robert Campin, now generally identified with the so-called Master of Flémalle, was one of the founders of the Flemish painting tradition alongside Jan van Eyck.

The panel features Campin's meticulous rendering of domestic objects and architectural detail, with the angel and Virgin placed within a room whose every surface is described with the tactile precision that characterizes the new Netherlandish realism.