L’Annunciazione

Painter, writer, musician: Alberto Savinio was a versatile artist, holding a prominent role in the Parisian art scene, where he mingled with the surrealist group. The Annunciation belongs to this atmosphere and stands out in the dense gallery of Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano for its original polygonal framing, which becomes an articulated and unstable space to reinterpret an, in and surreal ironicist sense, the biblical episode. To compose this invention, Savinio juxtaposes references to ancient art, 19th-century engravings, and naturalistic and scientific illustrations: Mary—with a pelican head—dialogues with the archangel, a giant appearing from the window with ideal and classicizing features.
The work, which has become an icon of the Casa Museo, was purchased by Francesco Di Stefano, Marieda's father, in 1933. Upon his death in 1938, it entered the collection of Antonio Boschi and Marieda Di Stefano along with many other works he had collected.