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Joachim and the Angel
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
The first three woodcuts of Dürer’s narrative (1959.99.2-4) 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.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineThe Life of the Virgin: Joachim and the Angel, c. 1504. Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528). Woodcut. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund, 1959.99.3
