Santi Gioacchino ed Anna con la Vergine Bambina

Giordano's Saints Joachim and Anne with the Virgin as a Child (Santi Gioacchino ed Anna con la Vergine Bambina) depicts the parents of the Virgin Mary — identified in the non-canonical Gospel of James — with the infant Mary between them. Joachim and Anne were important figures in Counter-Reformation Marian devotion: their childless old age, divine intervention in Anne's miraculous conception, and the presentation of Mary to the Temple at age three were celebrated in the liturgical calendar. The intimate family group — grandparents and miraculous child — provided Giordano with material for the same warm domestic devotional register he brought to his Holy Family subjects, the sacred family unit extended back one generation to encompass Mary's own miraculous origin. The Marian chain of miraculous births — Anne conceiving Mary, Mary conceiving Christ — was central to Counter-Reformation theological emphasis on the continuity of divine grace working through human family relationships.

The family grouping creates a warm, pyramidal composition of three generations. Giordano's late style brings characteristic warmth and tenderness to this sacred domestic scene.