Panel with Joachim's Offering Rejected

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Until 1950 this panel lined the Great Hall of Highcliffe Castle in southern England. Constructed in the 1830s for Lord Stuart de Rothesay, the castle was furnished in part with stonework acquired form the ruined royal abbey at Jumièges in Normandy, where the panels might also have originated. In all likelihood they once decorated the backs of choir stalls ordered in 1501 by the abbot of Jumièges. Carved on The Cloisters' thirty-five oak panels are scenes from the lives of the Virgin and Christ, each set under an elaborate canopy of single or double arches. The exuberant latticework surrounding the arches provides an almost encyclopedic display of pinnacles, crockets, spirals and other fanciful decorations. The panels show here open the narrative sequence, with the childless Joachim and Anne standing inside the Temple, saddened by the refusal of their offering. On the next panel an angel, arching his body, appears to Joachim with the news that he and Anne will have a daughter and that she will be named Mary. As in many late medieval works, the figures are foreshortened within their inhabited surroundings, adding depth and drama to the composition.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

Metropolitan Museum of Art