LILY OF THE ANGEL GABRIEL 185 



We read of the Virgin that by her great 

 beauty the men who saw her were astonished 

 (stupefatti). 



. . . ' Do you beUeve that she went about in 

 the manner in which you paint her? I say to 

 you that she went dressed as a poor woman ! ' ' 



But he who taught for choice beneath the 

 damask rose in the centre of his cloister ad- 

 mitted roses and Hlies where he denounced 

 rubies and pearls. Flowers alone survived as 

 emblems or as votive decoration even after the 

 puritanical current towards the ideal set in 

 motion by the great Dominican became merged 

 in the over-sweeping wave of classicism — and 

 even those late artists who dispensed with every 

 other convention for the expression of the ab- 

 stract, placed a lily in the angel Gabriel's hand. 



Modern art has adopted the tradition and 

 in the * Ecce Ancilla Domini ' of Rossetti == the 

 wingless angel carries a stalk of lilies. There 

 is also a white lily embroidered upon the strip 

 of material which is stretched upon an em- 

 broidery frame at the foot of Mary's bed. 



The angel brings the lily to the Virgin in 



1 Sermon on Amos and Zachaxiah. " Tate Gallery. 



