Ludovico Carracci, 'The Marriage of the Virgin', about 1590

The Virgin Mary, in white, places her hand in Saint Joseph’s while the dove of the Holy Ghost hovers above the altar of the Temple in Jerusalem.

This is the Marriage of the Virgin, as told in the Golden Legend, the great medieval collection of saints‘ lives. According to the legend, the Virgin lived in the Temple in Jerusalem along with other girls sent there to be brought up until the age of 14. When the high priest sent all who had reached the age of womanhood home to be married, Mary declared that she could not go as she had been given to the Temple by her parents and had vowed her virginity to God. On God’s instructions, the priest told all the unmarried men of the house of David to bring a branch and lay it on the altar. They did so, and Joseph’s branch burst into flower, in fulfilment of the prophecy in Isaiah 11: 10: ’And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.'

The high priest joins the couple in matrimony, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. Mary’s virginal companions on the right are balanced by her disappointed suitors in exotic headgear on the left. In the front left a young woman holding a toddler looks on, though he is more interested in the small dog which has joined the ceremony. In the background, on the steps of the altar, other figures gaze up and gesture in astonishment at the dove.

This jewel-like painting on copper is characteristic of the early works of Ludovico Carracci. His skill as a painter is evident in the variety of effects he achieved in this small picture: the glowing colours emerging from the dimness of the Temple; the delicate touch in parts of the painting, apparent in the details of the vestments, the flowering rod and the hairs of the dog, and the way in which they contrast with the rich, heavy drapery of Mary and Joseph; the fragile charm and innocence of the faces of Virgin and her companions.

For such a small painting, the composition is surprisingly complex with a strong geometrical structure to draw our eye around the picture. The mother and child in the front form a broad-based triangle; another triangular group is made up of the heads and shoulders of Joseph and Mary and the priest. Diagonal lines run up the back and shoulders of the mother and through the leg and foot of the man on the steps, guiding our eye to the flowering rod, and through the hats and heads of the suitors up to the dove. These contrast with the strong verticals of the columns of the Temple and of the main figures and their attendants.

This picture may well have been made for the Bolognese collector and patron Alessandro Tanari. Tanari owned no fewer than 13 pictures by Carracci and commissioned a painting on copper of the Marriage of the Virgin to commemorate his marriage to Diana Barbieri on 13 January 1589. It was apparently placed in an elaborate silver frame and hung in his wife’s bedroom.