The Presentation of Mary in the Temple



Bernart van Orley, Presentation of the Virgin

From a polyptych painted for the Brussels 

Beguinage

Flemish, 1520

Brussels, Musée du Centre public d'aide sociale

Drawing on earlier writings, like the Protoevangelion of James, the Golden Legend tells us 

“when she had accomplished the time of three years, and had left sucking, they brought her to the temple with offerings. And there was about the temple, after the fifteen psalms of degrees, fifteen steps or degrees to ascend up to the temple, because the temple was high set. And no body might go to the altar of sacrifices that was without, but by the degrees. And then our Lady was set on the lowest step, and mounted up without any help as she had been of perfect age, and when they had performed their offering, they left their daughter in the temple with the other virgins, and they returned into their place. And the Virgin Mary profited every day in all holiness, and was visited daily of angels, and had every day divine visions.”1

Although there is no evidence that any such group of temple virgins existed in Jerusalem, the belief that Mary was somehow set aside, even as a child was in existence by the middle of the second century when the Protoevangelion was written.


A feast of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary has been celebrated in the Eastern (Greek-speaking) Church since before the end of the first millennium, but it was not introduced into the Western (Latin-speaking) Church until the late 14th century. In the immediate aftermath of the Council of Trent its celebration was abolished by Pope Pius V (1568), but it was reinstituted shortly after by Pope Sixtus V (1585). Currently, the Presentation of the Virgin Mary is celebrated as a memorial on November 21. Since it is based on a non-Biblical source it is not a major feast.

  

Whatever the fate of the feast may have been, the story of Mary’s presentation and dedication to the service of God has been a significant inspiration to artists and their patrons. There is something fascinating in the theme of a small girl ascending a long staircase, alone, suspended as it were between the familiar world of home and parents and the amazing future that awaited her. And, in the medieval world, where small children were sometimes given to God as oblates in a monastic community, the experience was a lived one for some.

Perhaps most poignant in this sense of the small girl going forth into the future is the illumination from the Très Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry by Jean Colombe, who was chosen to complete the manuscript near the end of the 15th century. Here the tiny Mary is seen in isolation as she climbs the steps toward the waiting clergy, her mother and father left behind. The temple is represented by a Gothic cathedral. The gestures of Anne and Joachim seem to portray both prayerful reverence and sadness. They know that they have vowed her to the service of God and that the angelic messengers told them she would be great, but their expressions suggest that, for all that, they feel the same sadness as any parent does in seeing their little one set out into the world.

Jean Colombe, Presentation of the Virgin

From the Tres Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry

French, c. 1485-1480

Chantilly, Musée Condé

MS 65, fol. 137r

Similar emotions seem to pervade the interpretation of the scene by Paolo Uccello in the cathedral of Prato earlier in the 15th century. Here Anne and Joachim stand in prayer to one side of the staircase, while little Mary appears to rush gladly up the steps to the waiting High Priest.  On the right side of the composition some onlookers, clad in 15th-century clothing may include the kneeling donor of the painting.

Paolo Uccello, Presentation of the Virgin

Italian, c.1435

Prato, Cathedral

The vision of Giotto over 100 years earlier shows Anne taking a more active role in the scene. In the fresco from the Arena Chapel, Anne has climbed the steps with the slightly older Mary and, with a gesture that is both encouraging and protective, offers her to the High Priest. Joachim, meanwhile, stands at the bottom of the stairs, along with the servant who carries a basket with their material offering.

Giotto, Presentation of the Virgin
Italian, c. 1304-1306
Padua, Arena/Scrovegni Chapel

Fra Carnevale’s 1467 pendant to the Birth of the Virgin reduces the Presentation to an almost unreadable action, set in a vast temple structure that resembles a great early Christian basilica. Mary and Anne appear in the center of the foreground as a grand lady and her teenage daughter.

 

Fra Carnevale, Presentation of the Virgin
Italian, 1467
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

They are accompanied by an entourage of three other women and two men, as they pass a group of beggars and a dog. Joachim is not included. The building they are about to enter is bustling with figures, predominantly elegantly dressed young men, going about their business or chatting together. It is only in the innermost part of the temple, at the end of more steps (but not a grand staircase) that we can see the tiny figures of the waiting clergy.


In the Tornabuoni Chapel frescoes in Florence’s Santa Maria Novella, Domenico Ghirlandaio similarly sets the action in the midst of much activity. However, his scene is easier to read than Fra Carnevale’s, as it sets Anne and Joachim apart, gives them appropriate clothing and haloes, includes the stairs and makes Mary the center of the painting.

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Presentation of the Virgin
Italian, 1486-1490
Florence, Church of Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Chapel

At almost the same time that Vittore Carpaccio was creating the lovely, clear and contemplative vision now in the Brera Gallery in Milan, Albrecht Dürer, in Germany, was creating his image for the Life of the Virgin series of woodcuts.

Vittore Carpaccio, Presentation of the Virgin
Italian, 1504
Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera

Albrecht Dürer, Presentation of the Virgin,
from Life of the Virgin
German, 1503

Dürer’s vision is slightly disturbing. His Mary is shown almost disappearing behind a column, while Anne appears to be completely overcome with emotion. The scene is observed by moneychangers at their tables and sacrificial offerings occupy the front plane of the image.



The culmination of the pre-Trent image of the Presentation of the Virgin is surely Titian’s great painting of 1534, now in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Venice.

Titian, Presentation of the Virgin
Italian, 1534
Venice, Galleria dell'Accademia

  

Commissioned for the Scuola della Carità, a Venetian charitable institution, the painting was meant to sit on a long wall pierced by two doors; hence the unusual shape of the painting. Set in an expansive urban setting, the fearless Mary, surrounded by a heavenly light, mounts the stairs toward the waiting High Priest. It is not immediately clear which of the spectators are her parents, but they may be the two people kneeling at the foot of the stairs.  



Just prior to the suppression of the feast of the Presentation by Pope Pius V Daniele da Volterra offered a typically Mannerist composition in which the ostensible subject matter is almost lost in the multiplicity of irrelevant actions. Instead of focusing on the primary actors, Volterra distracts us with multiple unrelated figures that are also ascending and descending the temple stairs, all the while beset by resident beggars. Mary and her parents are seen from a distance only in the upper right corner of the composition.

Daniele da Volterra, Presentation of the Virgin
Italian, 1555
Rome, Church of Santa Trinità dei Monti

Following the reintroduction of the feast paintings on the subject continued to be produced.

The Antwerp Mannerist painter Denys Calvaert, who settled in Bologna, Italy, presents a traditional composition, although with typical Mannerist distortions of proportion and disturbingly tight compression of multiple figures in the compositional space.  In his rendering Mary's role as the new Eve is underscored by the placement of a "relief" image of the Temptation of Adam and Eve in the space at the base of the stairway.

Denys Calvaert, Presentation of the Virgin
Flemish, 1585-1600
Bologna, Pinacoteca Nationale

Pietro Testa's painting of the subject, from the 1640s, seems to represent a combination of Mannerist and classicizing Baroque styles, with its clearly classical figures squeezed into a somewhat contorted space and its fitful, flickering lighting effects.  Here strange figures emerge out of the half-light areas of the image, including the youth carrying the large candlestick.  They may possibly to be read as angels, in addition to the obvious air-borne angels in the upper right.

Pietro Testa, Presentation of the Virgin

Italian, c. 1641-1644

St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum

In contemporary, classicizing, France, the scene imagined by the 17th-century painter Eustace LeSueur has been stripped to essentials. Instead of multiple actors and much activity, we see an almost everyday scene as Anne escorts her daughter to the temple entrance, as three beggars appeal for alms.

Eustache LeSueur, Presentation of the Virgin
French, c.1641
St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum

In 18th-century Hungary, the Austrian painter Franz Anton Maulbertsch decorated the ceiling of a portion of the Episcopal residence in the town of Szombathely with a vision that, while harking back to some of the elaborate compositions of the Renaissance, is still simple and easy to read. We can easily identify the High Priest, Mary, Anne and Joachim.

Franz Anton Maulbertsch, Presentation of the Virgin
Austrian, 1782
Szombathely, Episcopal Residence

                                   

In late 19th-century Italy Prosper Piatti set his Presentation of the Virgin in a reconstructed space that shows the accumulated knowledge of a century of archaeology and study of middle Eastern culture. It is also the first image I have seen that includes other little girls among the welcoming group at the top of the temple stairs. The glances of Mary and Anne are directed, therefore, not to the High Priest, as in former versions, but toward these youngsters. This is the group that, presumably, Mary is to join. It also, to a certain extent, removes Mary from the supernatural level and places her on the natural level.  She no longer hastens upward to a mysterious, singular future but, like any child on her first day of school, looks to her classmates as her new reality.

Prosper Piatti, Presentation of the Virgin
Italian, 1899
Private Collection

_______________________________________
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 47-54.

© M. Duffy, 2011/2012

Glorious Saint Anne – Iconography of Saint Anne, Day 3 – The Birth of Mary

Boccaccio Boccaccino, The Birth of the Virgin
Italian, c.1514-1515
Cremona, Cathedral

 

 

Following the angel’s annunciation that they were to become parents at last and their joyful reunion at the Golden Gate, Joachim and Anne returned home where “Anne conceived and brought forth a daughter, and named her Mary.”1

The Birth of Mary is commemorated by the Church on September 8th.  Also known as the Birth of the Virgin, it 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

 

Among the artists who have pictured the birth of Mary were:

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.


Cavallini, The Birth of the Virgin
Italian Mosaic, c.1291
Rome, Church of Samta Maria in Trastevere

 

 

Giotto’s image, from the Arena Chapel, shows several activities associated with the birth. In the foreground, two maids finish cleaning and wrapping the baby. In the background, the swaddled Mary is presented by an attendant to her mother, who lies in a curtained bed. At the left of the scene a neighbor appears at the doorway, handing a gift to one of the maids.


Giotto, The Birth of the Virgin
Italian, c. 1304-1306
Padua, Arena Chapel

                                                       
 

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.

Pietro Lorenzetti, The Birth of the Virgin
Italian, c.1342
Siena, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo

In the 1430’s Paolo Uccello expanded on the theme of busy-ness surrounding the birth. 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.

Pietro Uccello, The Birth of the Virgin
Italian, c.1435
Prato, Duomo

In the north of Italy, the Venetian, Michele Giambono, presents the scene in a replica of a Venetian palazzo and includes Joachim as an observer, along with servants and visitors.

Michele Giambono, The Birth of the Virgin
Italian, c. 1431-1433
Venice, Basilica of San Marco, Muscoli Chapel

Fra Carnevale (now identified as Bartolomeo di Giovanni Corradini) expands the 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.

In the Metropolitan panel the scene of the Birth of the Virgin takes place in what can only be described as a palace, presented in intricate detail and peopled by many figures: servants, elegant visitors, huntsmen. The principal figures of Mary and Anne are almost lost in the crowd!

Fra Carnevale, The Birth of the Virgin
Italian, 1467
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the early 1450s Fra Filippo Lippi combined scenes from the life of St. Anne with a painting of the Madonna and Child. Mary’s own birth is shown over her right shoulder, while the meeting at the Golden Gate appears over her left.

Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child With Scenes from the Life of St. Anne
Italian, 1452
Florence, Pitti Palace

                                       
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".

Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Birth of the Virgin
Italian, c. 1486-1490
Florence,  Church of Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Chapel

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.  Dürer adds one powerful angelic observer.

Albrecht Dürer, The Birth of the Virgin
From The Life of the Virgin
German, 1503

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.

Andrea del Sarto, The 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.

Albrecht Altdorfer, The Birth of the Virgin
German, 1525
Munich, Bayerisches Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek

Following the upheaval caused by the Reformation, the Council of Trent was called to reform the Church. It met in three sessions between 1545 and 1563. Its decrees prepared the Church to respond effectively to the Protestant challenge, but they also eliminated much of the old cultural atmosphere. The old extra-Biblical tales and fantasy-filled legends ceased to have influence and art became more realistic.

An early example is Carlo Saraceni’s Birth of the Virgin, a smallish painting on copper, now in the Louvre, dated between 1616 and 1619.

Saraceni is one of the painters that form a bridge between Mannerism and the Baroque. His image of the birth takes place in semi-darkness in a large structure that could be a palace or a church, but is bare of extra ornament. However, a heavenly apparition of celebrating angels appears in the upper left.

Carlo Saraceni, The Birth of the Virgin
Italian, c. 1616-1619
Paris, Musée du Louvre

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.

Simon Voet, The Birth of the Virgin

French, 1620

Rome, Church of San Francesco a Ripa

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, who is held by her wetnurse. 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.

Le Nain Brothers, The Birth of the Virgin
French, c.1645
Paris, Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris

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.

Bartolomeo Murillo, The Birth of the Virgin
Spanish, 1660
Paris, Musée du Louvre 

By 1700 the number of paintings of the Birth of the Virgin began to decline as aspects of Mary’s adult life received greater emphasis.

______________________________________________________

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.

© M. Duffy, 2011, Images refreshed 2022

“He will be called John” – The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Gabriel Announces the Coming of John the
Baptist to Zechariah
Italian, c. 1485-1490
Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Chapel 

John the Baptist is one of the greatest of all the saints: herald of the Messiah, preacher, admonisher of kings, Baptizer of Jesus, and all these events in his life have been widely depicted in art, but his birth has not been widely imaged.

One of the most complete painting cycles of the life of Saint John the Baptist was painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio and his workshop in the Tornabuoni Chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence between 1485 and 1490.

"In the days of Herod, King of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the priestly division of Abijah; his wife was from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
Both were righteous in the eyes of God, observing all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly.
But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren and both were advanced in years.
Once when he was serving as priest in his division's turn before God, according to the practice of the priestly service, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord to burn incense. Then, when the whole assembly of the people was praying outside at the hour of the incense offering,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right of the altar of incense. Zechariah was troubled by what he saw, and fear came upon him.
But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall name him John.
And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,
for he will be great in the sight of (the) Lord. He will drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will be filled with the holy Spirit even from his mother's womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.
He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers toward children and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous, to prepare a people fit for the Lord.”
Then Zechariah said to the angel, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years."
And the angel said to him in reply, "I am Gabriel, who stand before God. I was sent to speak to you and to announce to you this good news.
But now you will be speechless and unable to talk until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled at their proper time." Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah and were amazed that he stayed so long in the sanctuary.
But when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He was gesturing to them but remained mute.
Then, when his days of ministry were completed, he went home."
(Luke 1:5-23)

Sometime during Elizabeth’s pregnancy Gabriel made another visit, to announce another impending birth, this time to a young virgin in the town of Nazareth. Unlike Zeccharias, she responded to Gabriel’s message with belief and acceptance, saying “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:26-38)

She then set off to visit Elizabeth, an event called the Visitation. 

Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Visitation
Italian, c. 1485-1490
Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Chapel

"During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said, "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."
(Luke 1:39-45)

"When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son.
Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. (Luke 1:57-58)

Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Birth of John the Baptist
Italian, c. 1485-1490
Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Chapel

When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father,

but his mother said in reply, "No. He will be called John."
But they answered her, "There is no one among your relatives who has this name."
So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called.
He asked for a tablet and wrote, "John is his name," and all were amazed.
Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God."
(Luke 1:59-64)

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Zechariah Confirms the Name of John
Italian, c. 1485-1490
Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Chapel

Among Ghirlandaio’s young assistants at this time may have been a teenager who would grow up to become one of the greatest artists of all time, Michelangelo Buonarotti.

© M. Duffy, 2011