The Annunciation is a painting associated with Fra Filippo Lippi dating to approximately which years?

• A. Fra Filippo Lippi, c 1450-53
• B. Sandro Botticelli, c 1450-53
• C. Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1440
• D. Piero della Francesca, 1450

Answer: (A)

Dating Renaissance paintings often comes from matching the work’s visual language to what we know about an artist’s period and from any archival notes about commissions. This Annunciation shows Fra Filippo Lippi’s characteristic mid-15th-century approach: quiet, devotional mood; softly modeled faces; careful, elegant drapery; and an intimate interior space that folds into a shallow, believable depth. These elements align with Lippi’s mature Florentine style around 1450 to 1453, a time when he was active in Florence and moving toward the pried-back, human-centered realism that marks his work from that period.

The other artists listed would produce different signatures. Botticelli’s early works reflect a later phase and a more refined linear grace that evolves after the 1450s; Ghirlandaio’s pieces from the 1440s onward carry a denser narrative detail and stouter form; Piero della Francesca is known for a more monumental, geometrically precise approach rooted in a different regional context. The painting’s harmony of soft light, gentle figure modeling, and inward focus fits Lippi’s mid-15th-century style best, placing it around 1450–1453.