The Marriage of the Virgin

This panel, originally from the predella of an altarpiece, shows a scene from the widely circulated Golden Legend, a collection of hagiographies written in the thirteenth century by Jacobus de Voragine, a Dominican priest. In the story of the Virgin’s marriage, her suitors were told to present rods at the temple in Jerusalem; the man with the flowering rod was given her hand. In this depiction, the aged Joseph receives his bride. Behind him, young men who failed to win the Virgin respond with various expressions of frustration as trumpets announce the victor. In addition to the rich colors and delicacy of a manuscript illumination, the composition borrows heavily from classical relief sculpture of a kind often found on the sides of sarcophagi.