Hail, O Favored One

The Western artistic tradition says that Mary was seated reading the Bible when the angel Gabriel appeared to her (the Eastern tradition says she was drawing water from a well). So here I have put myself (and the viewer) in Mary’s place, seated at a table with the Bible open in front of her. Gabriel’s attribute, again according to artistic tradition, is lilies and this is what fills Mary’s field of vision. She heard Gabriel say, “Hail, O Favored One” and we, the viewer, are invited to contemplate how Mary must have felt and what these words could have meant to a young innocent Jewish girl.