THE REJECTION OF JOACHIM’S OFFERING
[ Joachim Opfer im Tempel ]
Albrecht Dürer,
(1471-1528) German
Woodcut. ca.1580? Executed for The Life of the Virgin, Trimmed to thread border all around. Printed on thin oatmeal coloured chain laid paper. Signed with monogram in the block. This impression from ca. 1580 is printed with an unidentifiable watermark, [but possibly a Sword hilt]. Small flaws to bottom border and minor repair to bottom left. The Ms.numeral 13 has been added in graphite below Dürer’s monogram. Original Poulsen Galleries, Pasadena framing lable has been preserved on verso of frame, Museum matted, glazed, giltwood frame.
Image Size 11 5/8 x 8 3/8” (29.5 x 21.2 cm.) Frame size 18 ½ x 14 ½ ”
PRICE CODE I SOLD
Click here for pricing details
Click for more information on the printing technique.
Ref: BR4/ennn/s.ns >VNNN
First published in 1503/04 as one of the series of images portraying the Life of the Virgin. The first complete edition (with a Latin text by Benedictus Chelidonius printed on the verso of the prints) was published in 1511.
The Traditional and Legendary scenes are those taken from the apocryphal Scriptures, some of which have existed from the third century. The Golden Legend of Joachim and Anna, the elderly parents of the Virgin, with the account of her early life, and her Marriage with Joseph, down to the Massacre of the Innocents, are taken from the Gospel of Mary and the Protevangelion. One of Dürer's masterpieces, the print illustrates within the interior of a temple the High Priest refusing the offering of a lamb that Joachim the priest, has laid upon the alter, because he and his wife Anna, who are to become the parents of the Virgin Mary, are barren, a sign that they must have been rejected by God. The woodcut chooses a very ironic Biblical moment in which the wisdom of man was shortly to shown to be false. Notice his servant carrying the lamb for sacrifice.
Watermark: sword hilt, blank on verso
Ref: Bartsch, Adam von. Catalogue Resume 77 (131)
Meder Dürer-katalog. 19c-d
Strauss Walter Albrecht Durer Woodcuts and Wood Blocks. 94,