Description
In Birth of the Virgin, Pietro Lorenzetti depicts Mary’s arrival into the world inside an unusually convincing household. Saint Anne rests on a bed while women tend the newborn child, prepare her bath and bring linen and water. At the left, Saint Joachim receives news of the birth. Although the painting is divided into three pointed Gothic sections, its rooms belong to one continuous domestic setting, allowing several moments of the same sacred story to unfold together.
Finished in 1342 for the altar of Saint Sabinus in Siena Cathedral, the painting once formed the centre of a larger altarpiece. Its date and the painter’s name survive in an inscription. Lorenzetti makes an extraordinary feature of the painted architecture and gives intimate human gestures an important role in a religious subject. The work is now displayed at Siena’s Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.
