Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), after - Joachim and the Angel

Good impression on laid paper with a watermark

One of 20 woodcuts Dürer made around 1502 on the theme of the life of the Virgin.

One of the series of 20 woodcuts, without text, in the foreground Joachim half kneeling to the left, on the left an angel appearing against a dense forest, holding a letter with three seals; in the middleground two shepherds and one hunter onlooking. c.1504

The first three woodcuts of Dürer’s narrative portray the events leading up to the Virgin’s birth. According to an apocryphal text, Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anna, had remained childless into old age. After Joachim’s offering at the temple was rejected for this reason, the angel Gabriel appeared to him in the wilderness to announce that his wife would soon bear a child. At this news, the two tenderly embraced at the city’s gate.

Bibliographic references
Meder 1932 / Dürer Katalog (190)
Bartsch / Le Peintre graveur (VII.131.78)
Dodgson 1903, 1911 / Catalogue of Early German and Flemish Woodcuts in the BM, 2 vols (I.288.38a)
Schoch 2001-04 / Albrecht Dürer, das druckgraphische Werk. 3 vols I Intaglio, II Woodcuts, III Book illustrations (II. 168)

(British Museum)

A late 19th early 20th Century piece.