Angel Appearing to Joachim

Matteo di Giovanni's Angel Appearing to Joachim from around 1475 would have formed part of a Marian cycle beginning with the story of the Virgin's parents, Anne and Joachim, as narrated in the apocryphal Gospel of James. The story — the elderly Joachim, childless and rejected from the temple, receives an angelic announcement that he will father a holy child — was a popular subject in Marian altarpiece cycles because it established the miraculous nature of Mary's own conception, anticipating the Annunciation to the Virgin that would follow. Matteo di Giovanni's handling of this Old-Testament-parallel narrative reflects his confident command of multi-figure outdoor scenes, which he had developed through the Assumption altarpieces and narrative predella programmes of the preceding decade.

The outdoor setting — the angel appears to Joachim in the wilderness where he has gone in his grief — gives Matteo di Giovanni scope for his landscape interests. The angel's wings are given decorative attention in the Sienese manner: large, patterned feathers in alternating colours. Joachim's aged figure is rendered with careful attention to the posture of an elderly man surprised by supernatural visitation — the slightly bent back, the upward startled gaze.