A Middle Dutch incunable leaf hand coloured woodcut the Annunciation c1490

ANONYMOUS. A Middle Dutch incunable leaf with a hand coloured woodcut of the Annunciation.  Low Countries, c.1490.
 
Leaf (250 × 180 mm), printed in gothic textura in two columns, with rubricated chapter headings (“Dat derde capittel”, “Dat vierde capittel”, “Dat vijfte capittel”) and red paragraph marks. Large woodcut at head depicting the Annunciation: the Archangel Gabriel bearing the scroll “Ave gratia plena” before the Virgin Mary, with the Holy Spirit descending in rays from a cloud, the scene set within an architectural frame flanked by standing saints in niches. Contemporary hand-colouring in red, blue, green, and yellow.
 
Printed on laid paper with visible chain-lines. Some marginal wear, staining to the top left hand side, and small edge losses, but the image and text complete and clear; colouring well preserved. A good, honest example of a late-fifteenth-century Netherlandish devotional book illustration.
 
The text is in Middle Dutch and corresponds to Luke 1–2, including the Annunciation and the narrative of Zacharias and Elizabeth, from a vernacular Gospel edition intended for lay readership. The style of the woodcut and typography place it within an early Netherlandish incunable book, most likely printed in the Northern Low Countries (from a Delft or Haarlem press) around c1490.