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Overview
Albrecht Dürer began The Life of the Virgin in circa 1501-2 and completed it only in 1511, incorporating works that were probably made before he decided on a series of woodcuts, but with an overall plan in mind early on. There are nineteen different scenes and a cover-page in the series, and currently Te Papa has examples of three of them. In Albrecht Dürer Woodcuts and Woodblocks (1980), Walter Strauss suggests that several prints were made with engravings by Martin Schongauer in front of him. Dürer, however, never simply imitated others, but changed and invented anew as he worked. The first complete edition with a Latin text printed on the verso (back) of each sheet was published 1511. Benedictus Chelidonius, a Benedictine monk and theologian, supplied the texts for both the Life of the Virgin and the Large Woodcut Passion, published in the same year. The two were often bound together, combined with the reissue of the Apocalypse.
The cult of the Virgin Mary was very popular in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The Gospels say very little about her life, so artists made use of apocryphal texts Speculum Historiale by Vincent de Beauvais and The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine. In his scenes, Dürer deliberately made his figures look like Germans of his own time, to make them better understood and appreciated by the public. Naturalism and accessibility are the watchwords, and these were intended to deepen devotion and reverence towards the Virgin Mary. The woodcuts presented an intimate narrative of Mary’s life, moving from such episodes as her birth and betrothal to the annunciation and nativity of Christ and finally to her death, assumption and coronation. Since many of the prints appeared long before their publication in book form, Dürer sold a number of them as single sheets, without the text printed on the back.
Joachim's offering rejected is the first and one of the most admired in the series. It depicts the High Priest, seated centrally and behind the table, rejecting Joachim's offering of a sacrifical lamb on a feast day because he and his wife Anne (often Anna) are barren and therefore rejected by God. Dürer chooses an ironic moment when the wisdom of man, personified by the High Priest and his followers, is about to become false. Soon afterwards the angel Gabriel appeared to Joachim in the wilderness where he fasted and did penance for 40 days, to announce that his wife would after all bear a child: Mary.
See:
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/6463/
http://www.spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Durer_Life_Virgin.html
Dr Mark Stocker, Curator Historical International Art December 2016