A full-length composition drawing in which the Madonna is seated on the right, in profile to the left; the angel appears on the left standing on clouds, half turned to the right with a lily in his left hand. Possibly a study for a small devotional painting.

There are more than 800 drawings in the Royal Collection by the Bolognese artist Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as il Guercino (Italian for ‘the squinter’). This beautiful drawing shows the angel Gabriel, holding a lily, appearing to the Virgin Mary; but the scene had initially been conceived as Prometheus bringing life to a clay statue with a burning torch, which Guercino then erased.