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| Juan de Borgona, The 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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| Saints Anne and Joachim From Images de la vie de Jesus Christ et des saints Belgian (Hainaut), c. 1285-1290 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Nouvelle acquisition francaise 16251, fol. 18v |
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| Benedikt Dreyer, Saints 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 |
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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, An Angel Announcing the Birth of Mary to Saint Anne
Italian, 1304-1308
Padua, Scrovegni/Arena Chapel |
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| Giotto, Saint Joachim's Dream Italian, 1304-1308 Padua, Scrovegni/Arena Chapel |
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| Anonymous, The Annunciation to Saints Anne and Joachim from Speculum humanae salvationis Italian (Bologna), 1350-1400 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Arsenal 593, fol. 5r |
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| The Annunciation of the Birth of Mary to Saint Anne from Fleur des victoires by Jean Mansel French, 1450-1475 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francaise 56, fol. 6r
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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
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
Among the artists who have pictured the birth of Mary were, first of all the manuscript illuminators whose work fired the imaginations of all those who saw their work in service books such as missals and choir graduals and in personal books such as books of hours and other prayer books.
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.
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| Bartolo di Fredi, The Annunciation of the Birth of Mary to Saint Joachim Italian, c. 1383 Vatican City, Pinacoteca Vaticana |
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 Saint 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
%20,%20c.%201100-1150_Paris,%20BNF_MS%20Grec%201208,%20fol52r.jpg) |
| Mary in Her Cradle Fromthe Orationes encomiasticae in ss. virginem diaparem by Jacobus Kokkinobaphi Byzantine (Constantinople) , c. 1100-1150 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Grec 1208, fol. 52r |
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| The Birth of the Virgin From an Illustrated Vita Christi English c. 1190-1200 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum MS 101, fol. 21r |
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| Possibly Jacopino da Reggio, The Birth of the Virgin From a Psalter Italian (Bologna), 13th Century Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Smith-Lesouef 21, fol. 13v |
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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| The Birth of the Virgin From mages de la vie de Jesus Christ et des saints Flemish, c. 1285-1290 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Nouvelle acquisition francaise 16251, fol. 19r |
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, The Birth of the Virgin
Italian, c.1291
Rome, Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere
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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.
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Giotto, The Birth of the Virgin
Italian, 1304-1306
Padua, Scrovegni/Arena Chapel
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Even in the north of Europe, where the memory of walls painted in the classical Roman tradition had virtually disappeared, artists still painted the scene on the walls of churches.
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| The Birth of the Virgin From a series of Scenes from the Life of the Virgin German, 14th Century Trier, Liebfrauenkirche |
Other artists presented the scene on painted panels, which could be used as altarpieces or for private contemplation.
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, The 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 Being 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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| Master of the Roman de Fauvel, The Birth of Mary From Speculum historiale by Vincent of Beauvais French (Paris), c. 1333-1334 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francais 316, fol. 291v |
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| The 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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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, The 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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| Mary's Birth and the Presentation 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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| A Master of The Gold Scrolls Group, The 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, The Birth of the Virgin From a Book of Hours Dutch, c. 1420 London, British Library MS Additional 50005, fol. 5v |
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| Master of Edward IV, The Birth of the Virgin From Speculum humanae salvationis Flemish (Bruges), c. 1485 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francais 6275, 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, The Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1365 Florence, Church of Santa Croce, Rinuccini Chapel |
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| Don Silvestro de'Gherarducci, The Birth of the Virgin Italian, c.1375 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession # 21168
In the 1430s 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, Saint 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.
A Place for JoachimAlthough he was not originally included in most of the earlier images, Joachim had occasionally been included in the subject (see images from the Images de la vie de Jesus Christ et des saints, the German wall painting and the painting by Pietro Lorenzetti and others above), he began making more regular appearances from the late fourteenth century.
In the north of Italy, the Venetian, Michele Giambono, presented the scene in a replica of a Venetian palazzo and added Joachim as an onlooker.
In some pictures he is shown as present, but outside the actual birth room.
Eventually Joachim makes it into his wife's room, with his newborn daughter close at hand.
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Stepping 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, The Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1467 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Other painters of more modest vision followed suit.
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| The Birth of the Virgin German, c. 1520 The Hague, Mauritshaus Museum |
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| Ambrosius Benson, The Birth of the Virgin Flemish, c. 1528 Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado |
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| Michiel Coxcie, The Birth of the Virgin Flemish, Before 1550 Madrid, Museo del Prado |
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| Gaudenzio Ferrari, The 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, The 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, The 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".
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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. Durer adds one powerful angelic observer.
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Albrecht Dürer, The Birth of the Virgin From The 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, 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.
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| Albrecht Altdorfer, The Birth of Virgin German, c. 1520-1525 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. Angels, however, persisted.
They were most often there as heavenly spectators, but they also often appeared as attendants to a heavenly apparition, accompanying Persons of the Trinity or some other celestial element.
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| Giovanni Battista Ricci, The Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1590-1600 Rome, Church of San Marcello al Corso |
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| Alessandro Allori, The Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1595 Cortona, Church of Santa Maria Nuova |
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| Annibale Carracci, The Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1598-1599 Paris, Musée du Louvre |
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| Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, The Birth of the Virgin Spanish, 1603 Madrid, Museo del Prado |
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| Guido Reni, The Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1609-1611 Rome, Palazzo del Quirinale, Cappella dell'Annunziata |
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| Carlo Saraceni, The Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1616-1619 Paris, Musée du Louvre |
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| Theodoor van Loon, The Birth of the Virgin Flemish, 1622 Scherpendeuvel, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk |
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| Jacques Stella, The Birth of the Virgin French, c. 1640-1650 Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts |
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| Erasmus Quellionus, The 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, The Birth of the Virgin Spanish, 1660 Paris, Musée du Louvre |
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. |
| The Birth of the Virgin Flemish, c. 1460 Philadelphia, Museum of Art |
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| Master of Petrarch's Triumphs, The 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. The Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1520-1521 Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera
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.
At the end of the seventeenth century, Luca Giordano effected a compromise between the naturalistic and supernatural elements. Having built on the increasing trend of domesticity he creates a busy scene in which servants bustle around bathing and wrapping the baby, preparing her cradle and warming her covers observed by a watchful cat and a sleeping dog. In the meantime, Mary's parents are involved in their own roles, as Anne receives visitors from her bed (upper left corner) and Joachim observes and blesses his tiny daughter at the center. Unheeded by the human actors, glory streams out of heaven and highlights a group of winged cherub angels who hover watchfully above Mary's head.
This set the tone for the artists who followed him in the eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries. However, from about 1700 the number of paintings of the Birth of the Virgin began to decline as aspects of Mary’s adult life received greater emphasis. |
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| Jean Garcia de Miranda, The 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, The 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, The Birth of the Virgin Italian, c. 1742-1750 Pistoia, Carmelite Church |
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| Felix Auvray, The 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.