Plate XLV.
Photo. Giraudon.
THE BIRTH OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST.
Jean Fouquet.
Musée Condé.
To face page 188.
The Marriage of the Virgin[59] is another scene of great interest. The high-priest, arrayed in mitre and vestments, places the hand of Mary in that of Joseph, the chosen suitor, who bears his budding rod. Like so many of the artists of that period, the painter has taken his scene from the Legenda Aurea of Jacopo da Voragine, which tells us how Mary up to the age of fourteen years had lived in the Temple and had there taken a vow of virginity. Howbeit God commanded the High Priest Abiathar to assemble all the unmarried men of the House of David and to give to each a rod, upon which they were to inscribe their respective names. These rods were then placed upon the Altar and to the owner of the one which blossomed first the Blessed Virgin Mary was to be assigned. To this extremely solemn act Fouquet gives a semi-humorous note by the introduction of a realistic figure of Falstaffian proportions and a group of disappointed suitors. In the background behind the principal group St. Anne may be seen clad in exactly the same fashion as in the Mariensippe in the Bibliothèque Nationale. The style of the Temple architecture gives the artist opportunity for introducing reminiscences of Rome. In the broad frieze of fighting warriors we can recognise part of Trajan’s column; whilst the columns which flank the central arch record the gilt bronze columns once grouped around the Confession of St. Peter in the old Basilica. These were, of course, in Fouquet’s time still in situ and they reappear in the miniatures of the Antiquitates Judæorum in a scene where the victorious Pompey enters the Temple in triumph.