Joachim and Anne

The relief Joachim and Anne is part of the figural programme of Marian iconography on the main winged altar of the parish church in Bolzano, South Tyrol. According a contract of 1421 that has been found the commission for making the altar was won by the sculptor and painter Hans of Judenburg. When the altar was later on moved from the church in Bolzano and split up, parts of it went to all quarters. The mentioned relief was present in a church in Vrbovec near Zagreb, to which it was brought by painter and restorer Josef Sebastian Ritter von Hempel, owner of an estate in Vrbovec; it was bought for the Museum in 1884. Its morphological and stylistic features put the Meeting of Joachim and Anne at the end of the international soft style, which can be seen in particular in the pronounced realism of the representation and in the more compact treatment of the folds of the clothing, devoid of the melodiousness characteristic of the soft style.