presentation of the virgin at the temple

The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, 1534-38 by Titian

This vast canvas still decorates the wall for which it was created in the Sala dell'Albergo of the Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Carita - which was transformed into the galleries of the Accademia early in the last century. The original commission had been awarded in 1504 to a little-known Venetian painter, Pasqualino Veneto, who died, however, before carrying it out; not until thirty years later did the confraternity return to the project. The prehistory behind Titian's painting may be particularly significant, since it has often been observed that the master here invoked an archaic compositional tradition, that of the narrative tableaux developed in the late fifteenth century. The brothers of the Carita had indeed retained Pasqualino's design and perhaps insisted that certain of its aspects be followed. However that may be, Titian accepted the challenge; working within the context of that conservative heritage, he transformed the inherited material, elevating it to new levels of formal monumentality and expressive subtlety.

The flowing procession of the narrative line, the basic parallelism of the spatial structure, the asymmetry of the backdrop, the mixing of contemporary portraits (of the officers of the scuola) and architecture with a historically distant subject - these devices are all characteristic of the art of an older generation, that of Gentile Bellini and Carpac-cio. Measured against this background, Titian's variations stand out in high relief: the rhythms of his procession are more dynamic and, within the constraints of the processional format with its insistent regularity, his figures move with energy and variety, distinguishing themselves by the quality of their poses and gestures. Dominating the varied crowd, however, and focusing its diverse energies, is the diminutive figure of Mary ascending the steps of the temple; she is the unifying factor in this disparate assembly, whose members either actually accompany her on this historical occasion (her parents, the attendant virgins, the welcoming priests), bear witness to the event (the sixteenthcentury followers of the procession), or, like us, observe the full spectacle from a certain distance (the spectators watching from the palace windows and balcony above).

Throughout the composition Titian has emphasized the plane, and elements of spatial recession have been deliberately muted. The progress of the procession is plotted against the structural coordinates of the architecture which pace the rhythm across the length of the field - a movement measured by the clear modular units of the staircase wall, and again by the smaller rectangles of the diaper masonry in the middle distance. The foreground wall has been fitted with precision to the actual door of the room, its drafted masonry adapted to form the lintel (the door to the left was cut into the painting later, in 1572). Such pictorial artifice, immediately juxtaposing the fictive and the real, also implies an identification of the painted stone wall with the surface of the canvas - and hence with the wall of the albergo itself.

Before the painted wall Titian set two forms, an old woman and an antique torso. Because they are so deliberately isolated in an ambiguous zone, they acquire very special status. The old egg seller, in particular, placed below the Virgin and so pointedly looking in the opposite direction, counters the basic flow of the pageant's narrative impulse, while the torso remains hidden in the corner darkness. By their placement outside the space of the event, they represent, with the imaginative concreteness with which Titian endowed abstractions, the worlds of the Old Testament and of Greco-Roman antiquity, the era before Christian grace.

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Titian’s Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (1534-38)

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The Presentation of The Virgin in the Temple, from "The Life of The Virgin"

Albrecht Dürer German

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Title: The Presentation of The Virgin in the Temple, from "The Life of The Virgin"

Series/Portfolio: The Life of the Virgin

Artist: Albrecht Dürer (German, Nuremberg 1471–1528 Nuremberg)

Date: ca. 1503

Medium: Woodcut

Dimensions: sheet: 11 3/4 x 8 5/16 in. (29.9 x 21.1 cm)

Classification: Prints

Credit Line: Bequest of Grace M. Pugh, 1985

Accession Number: 1986.1180.81

Learn more about this artwork

Timeline of art history, albrecht dürer (1471-1528), anselm kiefer (born 1945), arms and armor - common misconceptions and frequently asked questions, europe and the age of exploration, jan gossart (ca. 1478-1532) and his circle, portraiture in renaissance and baroque europe, rembrandt van rijn (1606-1669): prints, the decoration of arms and armor, the printed image in the west: history and techniques, the rediscovery of classical antiquity, the reformation, central europe (including germany), 1400-1600 a.d., related artworks.

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• By Albrecht Dürer
• Drawings and Prints
• Relief prints
• From Europe
• From Germany
• From A.D. 1400–1600

Das Narrenschyff

Underweysung der messung/ mit dem zirckel und richtscheyt, opera alberti dureri. das ist / alle bücher des weitberühmbten... .cont.: underweysung der messung [. . .] vier bücher von menschlicher proportion; etliche underricht /zu befestigung// der stett/ schloss und flecken, di alberto durero pittore, e geometra. . .della simmetria dei corpi humani, libri quattro nuouamente tradotti dalla lingua latina nella italiana.

The Flight into Egypt, from The Life of the Virgin, from the Latin Edition

How Woodcuts are Made

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Drawings and Prints at The Met

Master of the Life of the Virgin, The Presentation in the Temple

The priest Simeon is shown receiving the infant Christ from the Virgin Mary in front of an elaborate altar. The scene is based on a passage in the Gospel of Luke (2:22–40), which describes Mary and Joseph’s visit to the temple in Jerusalem for the rituals of Mary’s purification and of Christ’s presentation to God.

Simeon recognised Christ’s divinity upon seeing him, saying ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation’ (Luke 2: 29–30). The embroidery on his cope shows the Roman Emperor Augustus having a vision of the Virgin and Child – a decisive experience which made the ruler recognise that their spiritual power was greater than his.

This painting, along with seven other panels now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, once formed part of the central panel of an altarpiece made for the church of Saint Ursula in Cologne. It was commissioned by Dr Johann von Hirtz, a councillor in the city.

This scene is based on a passage in the Gospel of Luke (2:22-40), which describes Mary and Joseph’s visit to the temple in Jerusalem for the rituals of Mary’s purification and of the infant Christ’s presentation to God. In conformity with Jewish law, all women had to be ritually purified forty days after giving birth, while first-born sons were to be presented and redeemed by an offering to God. The priest, Simeon, is shown receiving the infant from Mary in front of an elaborate altar. The two turtle doves held by a woman at the left were brought as the sacrificial offering to secure Christ’s redemption.

Simeon was the first to recognise Christ’s divinity after the latter’s birth. Upon seeing the child, the priest said: ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation’ (Luke 2: 29–30). The Old Testament scenes visible on the carved stone altarpiece and on the back of Simeon’s embroidered cope underscore the theological significance of the event, as they were deemed to foreshadow Christ’s Passion. The altarpiece shows Cain slaying his brother Abel, the sacrifice of Isaac, and the drunkenness of Noah, while the embroidery of Simeon’s cope depicts the Roman Emperor Augustus’s vision of the Virgin and Child during which he – a pagan – recognised that their spiritual power was greater than his. The small boys cast in bronze who hold up the altar may be references to pagan art, and reinforce the message of the cope by illustrating that paganism was surpassed by Judaism and Christianity.

The painting once formed part of an altarpiece made for the church of Saint Ursula in Cologne, consisting of scenes of the life of the Virgin Mary. Seven other panels are today in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. The work was commissioned by Johann von Hirtz, an alderman and mayor of the city.

The centre panel of the altarpiece consisted of four scenes arranged in a square grid – The Presentation in the Temple appeared in the lower right. It was once thought that the altarpiece took the form of a triptych (a painting composed of three parts) but recent technical analysis has raised the possibility that the panels may have been shown individually or in a different formation to that of a triptych.

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The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, from The Life of the Virgin

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• Prints and Drawings

c. 1503–04, published 1511

Albrecht Dürer German, 1471-1528

About this artwork

Date   dates are not always precisely known, but the art institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or bce., credit line, reference number, iiif manifest   the international image interoperability framework (iiif) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. learn more ., extended information about this artwork, catalogues raisonnés.

Meder 193 1511 Latin text

Schoch, Mende, & Scherbaum 171

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John Baptist Jackson

Description.

John Baptist Jackson ( British , 1701-ca. 1780), designer Titian ( Italian

Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple Titiani Vecelii, Paul Caliarii, Jacobi Robusti et Jacobi de Ponte; Opera Selection a Joanne Baptista Jackson, Angelo, Ligano Coelata et Coloribus Adumbrata

• chiaroscuro woodcut

Materials/Techniques

• Medium weight cream laid paper

Signature / Inscription / Marks

In Plate--Inscribed in shield in LR:DUCIT AMOR PATRIAE; inscribed in LR:Per Illustri, ac Nobili Viro D: no D: no/ ERASMO PHILLIPPS BARRONETTO/ Artium Zelantissmo Fautori, et de re litteraria/optime merito, Tabulan hane tehue debitae venerationis.suae argumentum, emeritissimo Patrono, et Mecaenati/commendat et dicatJ: B:Jackson.

Marks: Stamped in brown ink on verso:R.I.S.D./MUSEUM/OF ART surrounded by PROVIDENCE/RHODE ISLAND

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The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple

Nicolas chaperon 1639, the museum of fine arts, houston houston, united states.

• Title: The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple
• Creator: Nicolas Chapron
• Creator Lifespan: 1612 - 1656
• Creator Nationality: French
• Creator Gender: Male
• Date Created: 1639
• Physical Dimensions: w44.1 x h59.1 cm (without frame)
• Type: Painting
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Credit Line: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by the Laurence H. Favrot Bequest

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