French - Crozier with the Annunciation - Walters 4425

The volute (spiral head) of this crozier resembles a dragon. With a long curving neck covered with blue enamel scales, its grinning head bites at a leafy branch. Inside are the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Gabriel in a scene of the Annunciation. Gabriel's abbreviated greeting "Hail Mary, full of Grace" (Luke 1:28) appears in white enameled letters on each side of the volute. On one side the greeting is misspelled. In Christian symbolism, the dragon represented the Devil who misled mankind, while the Annunciation initiated Christ's birth and human redemption.