In this Annunciation scene, the Archangel Gabriel appears to Mary to inform her that she will soon bear the Son of God. Following convention, Gabriel is on the left of the picture and holds a messenger’s staff, while Mary reads at a prayer desk on the right, with lilies — an emblem of purity — at her feet. She sits within a hortus conclusus (enclosed garden) symbolising her virginity, while the townscape glimpsed in the background suggests the earthly world into which God is sending his Son. The Annunciation represents, both pictorially and structurally, the meeting of the two spheres — earthly and spiritual — in a single space.