Originally three paintings were commissioned by the D'Anna family for their chapels in the church of San Salvador in Venice, northern Italy.

The other pieces that were commissioned were a Transfiguration dated around 1560, as the altarpiece of the high altar, and a Crucifixion now in the Church of San Domenico, Ancona.

Hope's opinion ”disliked use of the muddy colours, the physical types, the mannered pose of the Virgin or the badly drawn figure of Gabriel and the inept use of gesture”.

The figures are different from other versions of the story annunciation in other Venetian works Titian does not connect to the myth of the city of Venice founded on the day of Annunziata.

As Bohde states "Titian merely connects the place of the Annunciation with the interior of San Salvador through the red and white tiled floor and the row of columns.