The Marriage of the Virgin, with the Expulsion of Saint Joachim from the Temple, the Angel Appearing to Saint Joachim, the Meeting at the Golden Gate, the Birth of the Virgin, and the Presentation of the Virgin

The Master of the Tiburtine Sibyl was active in the Rhine-Meuse region in the 1480s–90s, a period when multi-scene narrative panels — showing sequential episodes within a single composition — were highly fashionable in German and Netherlandish altarpiece production. This panel cycles through six episodes of the Virgin's early life: the Expulsion of Joachim, the Angel appearing to Joachim, the Meeting at the Golden Gate, the Birth of the Virgin, the Presentation, and the Marriage. These Marian scenes derived from the apocryphal Protevangelium of James rather than the canonical Gospels, reflecting the deep popular appetite for narrative detail about Mary's life that official theology did not supply.

The multi-episode format requires careful spatial planning: each scene is assigned a distinct architectural or landscape zone while maintaining visual coherence across the panel. The workshop handles the challenge with moderate success — figures are clearly legible and individual scenes easily read, though transitions between episodes rely on architectural frames rather than spatial logic. Drapery is modeled in the crisp, linear Rhenish manner with characteristic deep-set parallel folds.