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| Juan de Borgona, Birth of the Virgin Flemish, c. 1509-1511 Toledo, Cathedral |
The birth of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, is celebrated by the Church on September 8th. No one knows the precise details of how she was born, but pious reflection on her role in the life of Jesus and of the Church has led to a number of legends growing up around her parentage and birth.
Joachim and Anne
Her parents are called Joachim and Anne (or Anna or Hannah), although we do not know for sure if these are their actual names. In many ways the legends that surround them draw on several sources in both the Old and New Testaments. The theme of barren parents made fruitful in order to produce a special child and to whom this birth is announced by a supernatural messenger occurs in several places. There is the story of Abraham and Sarah, the story of the birth of Samuel, and that of the birth of John the Baptist. It is, therefore, not surprising that the story of Anne and Joachim should have this element as well.
In the story told in the Golden Legend, Joachim, who hailed from Nazareth in Galilee, married Anne, who came from Bethlehem in Judea. Both were descendants of the house of David.
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| Anne and Joachim From Livre d'images de Madame Marie Belgian (Hainaut), c. 1285-1290 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Nouvelle acquisition francaise 16251, 18v |
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| Benedikt Dreyer, Joachim and Anne German, 1515-1520 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
A Sacrifice Scorned
After twenty years of childless marriage they had prayed to God that if they should have a child, they would dedicate that child to His service. At this point, a priest of the Temple rejected a sacrifice brought by Joachim on the grounds that he was childless and, therefore, did not have the standing necessary to offer acceptable sacrifice.
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| Joachim's Sacrifice Rejected by the Priests Italian, c. 1304-1306 Padua, Arena/Scrovegni Chapel |
This rejection so upset Joachim that, instead of returning home, he fled to the countryside and stayed with the herdsmen who tended his flocks and herds.
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| Giotto, Joachim Among the Herdsmen Italian, c. 1304-1306 Padua, Arena/Scrovegni Chapel |
An Angelic Message
While Joachim was in the country both he and Anne had almost identical angelic visions.
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Giotto, Angel Announcing the Birth of Mary to St. Anne
Italian, 1304-1308
Padua, Scrovegni/Arena Chapel
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| Giotto, St. Joachim's Dream Italian, 1304-1308 Padua, Scrovegni/Arena Chapel |
_1350-1400_BNF_Arsenal+593,+fol.5.jpg) |
| Anonymous, Annunciation to Sts. Anne and Joachim from Speculum humanae salvationis Italian (Bologna), 1350-1400 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Arsenal 593, fol. 5 |
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| Annunciation of the Birth of Mary to St. Anne from Fleur des victoires by Jean Mansel French, 1450-1475 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francaise 56, fol. 6 |
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| Boccacio Boccaccino, Annunciation of the Birth of Mary to St. Joachim Italian, ca. 1516 Cremona, Cathedral |
The angel told each of them that God had heard their prayers and that they were to become parents of a child who would be "from her infancy sacred unto our Lord, and shall be full of the Holy Ghost".1
The story appears, as early as the fourteenth century, in manuscripts, and in Giotto's frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua, as well as in later fourteenth century Italian work. Later, it also appears as the left wing of the Saint Anne Altarpiece by the Flemish painter Quentin Massys (or Metsys), whose career straddled the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
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| Bartolo di Fredi, Annunciation to Joachim Italian, c. 1383 Vatican City, Pinacoteca Vaticana |
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| Quentin Metsys, Annunciation to Joachim Flemish, c. 1507-1508 Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique |
Following the angel’s annunciation that they were to become parents at last and their joyful reunion at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, Joachim and Anne returned home where “Anne conceived and brought forth a daughter, and named her Mary.”1
The Birth of Mary
The Birth
of the Virgin was a popular subject in medieval and Renaissance art. In many
ways its iconography resembles that of the birth of St. John the Baptist. It
takes place in comfortable, even somewhat exalted, surroundings, for Joachim is
represented as a man of substance. He has herds and flocks and, according to
the Golden Legend, when he and Anne married they were sufficiently wealthy to
be able to live on only one-third of their substance. The other two-thirds they
divided as follows “one part was for the temple, that other they gave to the
poor and pilgrims”.1
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| Mary in Her Cradle From Orationes encomiasticae in ss. virginem diaparem by Jacobus Kokkinobaphi Byzantine (Constantinople) , c. 1100-1150 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Grec 1208, fol. 52 |
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| Birth of the Virgin From an Illustrated Vita Christi English c. 1190-1200 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum MS 101, fol. 21 |
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| Possibly Jacopino da Reggio, Birth of the Virgin From a Psalter Italian (Bologna), 13th Century Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Smith-Lesouef 21, fol. 13v |
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| The Annunciation to Joachim and the Birth of the Virgin From a Book of Hours German (Bamberg), c. 1204 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 739, fol. 19v |
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| Birth of the Virgin From Livre d'images de Madame Marie Flemish, c. 1285-1290 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Nouvelle acquisition francaise 16251, fol. 19 |
And in larger mosaics and paintings that adorned the walls of churches.
Pietro Cavallini, who was an older contemporary of Giotto, worked in both mosaic and fresco in Rome. His mosaics of the Life of the Virgin in Santa Maria in Trastevere represent the moment when the severe Byzantine style begins to change into a more lifelike and relaxed style. In this domestic scene, two maids work at bathing the baby in the foreground, while in the background, two more place food and drink on a draped bedside table for Anne, who reclines on an upholstered couch.
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Pietro Cavallini, Birth of the Virgin
Italian, c.1291
Rome, Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere
|
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Giotto, Birth of the Virgin
Italian, 1304-1306
Padua, Scrovegni/Arena Chapel
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| Birth of the Virgin From a series of Scenes from the Life of the Virgin German, 14th Century Trier, Liebfrauenkirche |
Like Giotto, his Sienese contemporary, Pietro Lorenzetti, set his vision of the birth of Mary in a sort of dissected building, so that we see interior and exterior at the same time. In Lorenzetti’s image we seem to see things from another interior room separated by columns from the main actions. The “columns” are actually the frames of the central panel and two wings of the triptych. The “room” containing the birth event fills the central panel and fills the right wing as well. The bed on which Anne reclines extends into the right wing where two attendants and a portion of the visitor who talks to the new mother in the central panel are also seen. In the left wing Joachim, who is sitting on a bench with a visitor receives word that he has become a father.
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| Pietro Lorenzetti, Birth of Virgin Italian, c. 1324 Siena, Museo dell opera del Duomo |
In the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries many other artists, both illuminators and panel/wall painters
represented the scene. Like earlier
artists, they tend to focus on the effects of the birth on the prominently
shown Saint Anne. She lies in bed, being
tended by serving women, who offer her water to wash and food to eat. Meanwhile, other servants tend to the baby
Mary. They prepare a bath for her or
present her, wrapped in swaddling bands, to her mother. These paintings tell us a great deal about
what birth may have been like at the time, at least in well-to-do homes.
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| Mary Presented to Saint Anne From a Book of Hours English (London), c. 1325-1350 London, British Library MS Yates Thompson 13, fol. 58 |
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| Birth of the Virgin From a Breviary French (Paris), c. 1345-1355 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 75, fol. 491r |
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| Bernardo Daddi, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1350 London, Wellcome Collection |
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| Birth of the Virgin From a Missal Italian, c. 1350-1400 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS G 16, fol.232r |
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| Jean le Noir, Birth of the Virgin From Breviary of Charles V French (Paris), c. 1364-1370 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Latin 1052, fol. 497 |
The Little Queen of Heaven
A few artists
present the infant Mary as already the Queen of Heaven. She is presented to or held by her mother
already wearing a crown and royal robes.
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| Petrus de Raimbaucourt, Birth of the Virgin From a Festal Missal French (Amierns), 1323 The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek MS KB 78 D 40, fol. 109r |
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| A Master of The Gold Scrolls Group, Birth of the Virgin From a Missal Flemish (Bruges), c. 1415-1425 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 374, fol. 140r |
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| The Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle, Birth of the Virgin From a Book of Hours Dutch, c. 1420 London, British Library MS Additional 50005, fol. 5v |
Adding Visitors
From the mid-fourteenth century more characters were added,
increasing the sense of busyness around the primary figures of the Virgin Mary
and her mother. Additional figures,
often those of well-dressed women are added, as if the relatives and neighbors
had come to satisfy their curiosity about the child born to older parents. They are often dressed in fashions
contemporary with the period in which the painting was done, suggesting that
they may also be flattering references to actual persons who acted as patrons
of the artists.
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| Giovanni da Milano, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1365 Florence, Church of Santa Croce, Rinuccini Chapel |
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| Don Silvestro de'Gherarducci, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c.1375 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession # 21168 |
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| Birth of the Virgin From the Breviary of Martin of Aragon Catalan, c. 1398-1430 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Rothschild 2529, fol. 381v
In the 1430’s Paolo Uccello painted a work that served as the model for many other painters who followed. Here, in the foreground, maids attend to the baby, while a group of elegantly clad visitors satisfy their curiosity. In the background, St. Anne is seen washing her hands in basin, while a maid pours water, and another maid brings a tray with carafes of water and wine and something to eat. At the left another maid, carrying two dishes, hurries down an outside staircase.
|
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Paolo Uccello, Birth of the Virgin
Italian, , c.1435
Prato, Cathedral
|
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| Birth of the Virgin From Fleur des histoires by Jean Mansel Flemish (Bruges), c. 1450-1475 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francais 297, fol. 1 |
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| Jaume Mateu, Birth of the Virgin Spanish, c. 1450 Philadelphia, Museum of Art |
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| Master of the Life of the Virgin, Birth of the Virgin German, c. 1470 Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek |
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| Master of the Life of Mary, Birth of the Virgin German, c. 1485 Aachen, Domshatzkammer |
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| Boccaccio Boccaccino, Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1514-1515 Cremona, Cathedral |
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| Girolamo del Pacchia, Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1518 Siena, Oratory of San Bernardino |
A Place for Joachim
Although he was not originally included in most of the
earlier images, Joachim had occasionally been included in the subject (see
images from the Livre des images de Madame Marie, the German wall painting and
the painting by Pietro Lorenzetti above), he began making more regular
appearances from the late fourteenth century.
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| Birth of the Virgin From Vies de la vierge et du Christ Italian (Naples), c. 1350 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francais 9561, fol. 118v |
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| Birth of the Virgin and Presentation of Mary in the Temple From a Historien Bibel German (Swabia), c. 1375-1400 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 268, fol. 23v |
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| Michele Giambono, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1431-1433 Venice, Basilica di San Marco, Mascoli Chapel |
In some pictures he is shown as present, but outside the
actual birth room.
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| Master of the Osservanza, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1440 London, National Gallery |
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| Sano di Pietro, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1448-1452 Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Museum of Art |
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| Giovanni di Pietro, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1450-1460 Paris, Musée du Louvre |
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| Master of the White Inscriptions, Birth of the Virgin From Fleur des histoires by Jean Mansel Flemish (Bruges), c. 1475-1483 London, British Library MS Royal 18 E VI, fol. 8 |
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| Luca Signorelli, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1490 Private Collection |
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| Jacopo Bassano the Elder, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1550 Oxford (UK), University of Oxford, Campion Hall |
Moving Back
From this point on many painters began to alter the
composition of the Birth of the Virgin.
Up till now the principal focus had been on Saint Anne in bed, with
attendants, with Mary either nearby being cared for or actually in her
arms. Painters now began to concentrate
more completely on the newborn Mary and to push the bed, with Saint Anne
onboard, into the background.
Fra Carnevale (now identified as Bartolomeo di Giovanni
Corradini) began by expanding the already busy scene and its activities still further, in one of the
panels formerly known as the Barberini Panels and now divided between the
Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
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Fra Carnevale, Birth of the Virgin
Italian, 1467
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
|
Other painters of more modest vision followed suit.
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| Birth of the Virgin German, c. 1520 The Hague, Mauritshaus Museum |
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| Ambrosius Benson, Birth of the Virgin Flemish, c. 1528 Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado |
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| Michiel Coxcie, Birth of the Virgin Flemish, Before 1550 Madrid, Museo del Prado |
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| Gaudenzio Ferrari, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1541-1543 Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera |
By 1620, when Simon Vouet, a French artist living in Rome,
painted his Birth of the Virgin for the Roman church of San Francesco a Ripa
all inessential elements had gone. The large figures of the midwife and
attendants occupy almost the entire visual space. The partial figure of St.
Anne is barely visible at the upper right corner of the picture. Another figure
with her may be Joachim or may be a servant. It is too difficult to see to be
sure.
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Simon Voet, Birth of the Virgin
French, 1620
Rome, S. Francesco a Ripa
|
Introducing Angels
At the same time that artists were moving Saint Anne to the
rear of their compositions, they began to introduce an angelic presence to the
scene. This was a considerable departure
from previous works which had focused on the strictly human event of a
birth. What angelic presence there was
appeared in episodes of the annunciation of Mary's birth to one or other of her
parents which were sometimes included in the background of the birth pictures.
Introduction of angels was somewhat gradual. A very early example comes from a Book of Hours by the French illuminator known as the Pseudo-Jacquemart de Hesdin, painted around 1410. Here there is one angel, who is making himself (?) useful by adding water to the little bathtub in which Mary is about to be bathed. One could almost miss noticing his wings, except for their startling scarlet outer surface, which perfectly matches and echoes the color and shape of the extended arm of the maid who is checking the temperature of the bath.
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| Pseudo-Jacquemart de Hesdin, Birth of the Virgin From a Book of Hours French (Bourges), c. 1410 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum MS 36, fol. 71v |
When Domenico Ghirlandaio painted the Life of the Virgin in
the Tornabuoni Chapel in Florence’s Santa Maria Novella in the late 1480s, the
principal characters, Anne and Baby Mary, appear almost as afterthoughts,
upstaged by the visitors, and even by the “sculpted” putti on the chamber’s
frieze. Interestingly, at the upper left corner, we see the earlier scene of a
meeting between Anne and Joachim. This is also one of the earliest inclusions
of "angelic" onlookers, although here they are presented as an
antique (i.e., classical Roman) frieze of putti, the mischievous minor Roman
deities who morphed during the Renaissance into the fully fledged Baroque
"cherubs".
 | |
|
In Germany, Albrecht Dürer, in his 1503 Life of the Virgin,
presented a crowded scene where a few of the attendants appear to have
celebrated too enthusiastically. Durer adds one powerful angelic observer.
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Albrecht Durer, Birth of the Virgin
from Life of the Virgin
German, 1503
Philadelphia, Museum of Art |
In 1514 Andrea del Sarto produced a more sober version of
the subject. His design harks back to the Ghirlandaio. Although the distractions
are fewer, the visitors are still the central figures in the composition. The
angelic observers are confined to hovering near the ceiling or sitting on the
bed canopy.
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Andrea del Sarto, Birth of the Virgin
Italian, 1514
Florence, Church of Santissima Annunziata
|
In the years just after the 1517 beginning of the
Protestant Reformation Albrecht Altdorfer
produced a curious image where Anne’s bed and the Mary’s cradle seem to
have been set up in a building that bears a striking resemblance to a church
with both Gothic and Romanesque architectural features. Above their heads a
crowd of celebrating angels wheel exultantly.
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| Albrecht Altdorfer, Birth of Virgin German, 1520-1525 Munich,Bayerisches Staatsgemaeldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek |
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| Giovanni Battista Ricci, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1590-1600 Rome, Church of San Marcello al Corso |
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| Alessandro Allori, Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1595 Cortona, Church of Santa Maria Nuova |
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| Annibale Carracci, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1598-1599 Paris, Musee du Louvre |
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| Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, Birth of the Virgin Spanish, 1603 Madrid, Museo del Prado |
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| Guido Reni, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1609-1611 Rome, Palazzo del Quirinale, Cappella dell'Annunziata |
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| Carlo Saraceni, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1616-1619 Paris, Musee du Louvre |
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| Theodoor van Loon, Birth of the Virgin Flemish, 1622 Scherpendeuvel, Onze-Lieve_Vrouwekerk |
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| Jacques Stella, Birth of the Virgin French, c. 1640-1650 Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts |
 | ||||
| Erasmus Quellionus, Birth of the Virgin Flemish, c. 1650-1660 Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
The angels aloft in this picture carry the monogram of Mary "MRA", the first reference to Mary's name that has appeared in any of the pictures of her birth that I have seen up to this point.
Later in the 17th century the mood lightens greatly as, for
the first time the birth is attended by angels. Whereas, in earlier pictures,
the angelic witnesses were content to witness from above, these angels come
right down to earth and participate.
In the Birth of the Virgin by the Le Nain Brothers from
about 1645 three angels on the ground peer curiously at the baby or comment to
each other while Joachim gazes at his new daughter. However, one small angel is
taking an active role in events by warming a cloth by the fire. Saint Anne is
seen in the background talking to a visitor.
In Spain, Bartolomé Murillo went even further by
incorporating two helpful angelic children. They have brought a basket of
cloths to the servants and one angel is holding one up inspection. Meanwhile,
the other angel is being investigated by a small and curious dog. Saints Anne
and Joachim are seen conversing peacefully in the background.
|
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Bartolomeo Murillo, Birth of the Virgin
Spanish, 1660
Paris, Musée du Louvre
|
Later Realism and Compromise
Alongside this tendency to add angels to any picture with
spiritual significance, there also ran a line of the older, more realistic
imagery.
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| Birth of the Virgin Flemish, c. 1460 Philadelphia, Museum of Art |
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| Master of Petrarch's Triumphs, Birth of the Virgin From a Book of Hours French (Paris), c. 1500-1515 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 618, fol. 13v |
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| Bernardino Luini. Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1520-1521 Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera |
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| Follower of Jan Rombouts, Birth of the Virgin Dutch, c. 1520 London, National Gallery |
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| Francesco Nappi, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1624-1630 Rome, Church of Santa Maria di Monserrato, Cappella Ferrer |
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| Alessandro Turchi, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1631-1635 Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado |
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| Jusepe Leonardo, Birth of the Virgin Catalan, c.1642 Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado |
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| Lorenzo Greuter, Birth of the Virgin From Scenes from the History of Saints Anne and Joachim Italian, c. 1650 Rome,Church of Santa Maria Porta Paradisi
In the latter half of the seventeenth century the
naturalistic scenes began to be accompanied by the hint of the supernatural,
with the addition of what is known as a "glory". This is an area of glowing cloud that is
added to the scene. Initially, the
"glory" in these naturalistic pictures did not have any figural
presence added to it, remaining just cloud.
|
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| Francesco Solimena, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1690 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Luca Giordano, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1696-1698 Pasadena (CA), Norton Simon Museum |
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| Jean Garcia de Miranda, Birth of the Virgin Spanish, End of the 17th-Beginning of the 18th Century Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
At first glance this picture seems to be entirely naturalistic. However, note the woman in red at the front of the picture. Her head is tilted so that she looks up and outward, perhaps at a hidden group of angels or a glory. Behind her at the center of the picture, the figure is that of an angel, who gazes at the newborn Mary. So, this picture is actually one that combines the naturalistic and the supernatural.
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| Cosmas Damian Asam, Birth of the Virgin Austrian, c. 1725-1726 Kladruby (Czech Republic), Benedictine Abbey of the Assumption
Here, in spite of such naturalistic elements as the maid using a warming pan in the background, an angel (who appears to be Gabriel) directs the attention of Saint Anne to the glory in the upper left, which frames the dove of the Holy Spirit and the monogram of Mary.
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| Vincenzo Meucci, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1742-1750 Pistoia, Carmelite Church |
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| Felix Auvray, Birth of the Virgin Oil Sketch for a Painting in a Church in Nivernais French, c. 1830 Valenciennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts |
1. The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints. Compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, 1275. First Edition Published 1470. Englished by William Caxton, First Edition 1483, Edited by F.S. Ellis, Temple Classics, 1900 (Reprinted 1922, 1931.), Vol. 5, pages .
© M. Duffy, 2019, incorporating portions of essays posted previously as well as much new material.
