The Marriage of the Virgin

Jan van Dornicke's Marriage of the Virgin, painted around 1517 and now at the Saint Louis Art Museum, depicts the apocryphal scene in which the High Priest officiates at the marriage of Mary and Joseph in the Temple — a subject based on the Protoevangelium of James and the Golden Legend rather than the canonical Gospels. The Marriage of the Virgin was popularized by Raphael's celebrated 1504 version and remained a standard subject for Flemish and Netherlandish painters who combined the classical architecture favored in Italian treatments with the northern European figure types and costumes of their own tradition. Van Dornicke was an Antwerp painter working in the generation after Quentin Matsys.

The composition organizes a crowd of figures around the central ceremony in a spatial arrangement that shows awareness of Italian Renaissance compositional principles. Antwerp's cosmopolitan character is reflected in the blend of Italianate architectural space with northern figure types and drapery conventions.