Annunciation

Alessandro Franchi 1884

Audio description of the artwork

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The painter from Prato Alessandro Franchi worked on this preparatory cartoon depicting the Annunciation around 1884, when he planned the fresco cycle for the Raffo chapel in the Cemetery of Mercy in Siena – together with the near drawings with the Nativity and the Samaritan woman at the well here on display. The artist in his more mature phase was inspired by 15th century Florentine painting, when his style changed to adopt a more fluent narration, inviting the onlooker to immerse himself in the complex nature’s beauty.

Technical information

Author: Alessandro Franchi
Title: Annunciation
Date: 1884
Material and technique: Charcoal, black pencil and chalk on cardboard
Size: 145x258 cm
Location: Palazzo Pretorio Museum
Third Floor

Franchi was of humble origin, but had an exceptional talent as a draftsman: he attended Prato’s Municipal School of Drawing, then the Institute of Fine Arts in Siena, where he studied with Luigi Mussini, the well-known painter of the 19th century Purist art movement. The painters who lived during the Restoration and the Romantic period were used to draw, sketch, and make copies after ancient artists, especially those of the 15th century Florence.

The formal purity of this cartoon recalls the paintings by Beato Angelico and Filippo Lippi. Franchi is successful in inspiring the different varieties of materials and light effects, by highlighting with white chalk the figures standing out against the background representing the Tuscan countryside beyond the colonnade.

This cartoon is part of a graphic nucleus of about 300 pieces that Alessandro Franchi donated to the Municipality of Prato. This collection, dating between 1870 and 1912, is preserved in the Municipal Gallery since 1915, and includes many preparatory drawings for the frescoes Franchi painted in the Vinaccesi chapel in Prato’s Cathedral.