Religious scenes were an innovation in silk weaving during the second half of the 1300s and continued to be woven as pictorial bands and panels used on church vestments during the 1400s. In this fine early silk of the Annunciation, the Virgin and angel are both kneeling above a bed of flowers while a dove descends with a sprig in its beak. This luxury silk woven with gold thread and ivory silk on a now-faded blue ground may have originally been part of an altar hanging or an ecclesiastical cope, or cloak.