The Birth of the Virgin

The Birth of the Virgin, dated 1685 and now at the Bowes Museum in County Durham, depicts the apocryphal but widely depicted narrative of Mary's birth to Joachim and Anne — a subject that gave painters an opportunity to represent domestic Jewish life in a state of miraculous blessing. The Golden Legend provided the standard narrative: Anne reclining in bed attended by midwives while the newborn is bathed and swaddled nearby, the scene combining intimate domestic detail with the awareness that this birth begins the chain of events leading to the Incarnation. Painted when Solimena was in his late twenties and beginning his independent practice after his father's guidance, the work shows his early engagement with complex interior figure compositions.

Birth-of-the-Virgin compositions typically feature strong artificial light from candles or lamps, anticipating the full nocturnal treatment of Christ's own birth. The multiple female figures — Anne, midwives, attendants — give Solimena practice with varied poses in a spatially complex domestic interior.