This painting, along with the Assumption of the Virgin, also in this Museum, is part of a dismembered triptych found in the Church of Bom Jesus da Ribeira, in Funchal.
It may have belonged to the chapel of Our Lady of the Incarnation of the Convent of St. Francis in Funchal, moved to a new location in the mid-19th century. The retable structure, today partly truncated, should have this Annunciation¹ at the centre. To the right, on the obverse, The Assumption, also in the collections of this Museum, while on the reverse there are traces of a Saint Christopher carrying the Child Saviour of the World. On the left we would have had the missing wing, which may have had on the obverse the Encounter of St. Joachim and St. Ann, or the Genealogy of the Virgin. On the reverse we would have possibly had a St. Anthony holding a crucifix, or the Child Jesus.
The scene represents the interior of a palace room, with a canopy bed covered with a red cloth, a cabinet with carvings and a leather chair. In the foreground, there is the Archangel St. Gabriel, holding the sceptre that identifies him as the divine messenger, and the Virgin Mary. The dynamism of the composition is concentrated in the play of the diagonals and ellipses defined by the wings and the tunic of the angel, while Mary is in a pose of receptiveness, which justifies the representation in the composition of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, precisely between the Virgin and God the Father.
The painting is attributed to Joos van Cleve, whose real name was Van der Beke, at the beginning of his activity. Born in Cleve, he was a disciple of Jan Joest van Kalkar, who worked between 1507 and 1540. Documents show he was in Antwerp starting in 1511-12. He began to be known as the Master of the Death of the Virgin, for two triptychs that are preserved in Munich and in Cologne, in Germany. After 1530, he is known to have been present in the French court, and later, in England. He was influenced by the work of Gérard David, Metsys, Patenier and later by the Mannerists of Antwerp.

¹ Arte Flamenga, Museu de Arte Sacra do Funchal, Luiza Clode e Fernando António Baptista Pereira, EDICARTE, 1997, p. 64.