Gabriel was the archangel who announced to the Virgin Mary that she had been chosen to bear the Son of God (Luke 1:27-38).
Because of this he has traditionally become associated with other message-bearing angels in the Bible: appearing to Zaccharias to tell him that his wife Elizabeth would have a son, to Joachim, the father of the Virgin Mary, and, in the Old Testament, to the mother of Samson, in the same role.
In paintings of the Annunciation he appears before the Virgin carrying a lily, his attribute, and sometimes with a scroll on which are written the words with which he greeted her in Saint Luke's Gospel.