THE LILY OF THE ANNUNCIATION 171 



to have been the invariable intention. But in 

 the later half of that century the meaning 

 was developed and ampHfied. Distinction was 

 made between the vase and the flower it con- 

 tained. In France and in Spain, where reUgious 

 iconography is found in architectural detail 

 rather than in pictorial decoration, the favourite 

 arrangement of the Annunciation was to place 

 the vase midway between the Virgin and the 

 angel, a composition which from its equal 

 balance was most decorative. The Virgin with 

 drooping head and faUing veil, Gabriel with 

 curved wings, both leaning forward towards the 

 central vase of lihes, formed an ideal filling for 

 a lunette or the spandrels of an arch, and the 

 simpHcity of the group made it particularly 

 suitable for sculpture, both in wood and stone. 

 It is the central motive of many of the great 

 carved and gilded reredos in Spain and of the 

 simpler stone altars of France. The central vase 

 of lilies had, however, a tendency to become 

 ever larger, tiU, from being a detail, it became the 

 important centre-point, and in some French 

 Annunciations of the sixteenth century the 

 uninstructed heathen would merely see two 



