Jabach Altar: Saints Joseph and Joachim

In 1479 Rome took up the feast of Saint Joseph on 19 March, the end of a long campaign by churchmen for a figure who in the religious plays of the time was often played for laughs, the bewildered old husband. Dürer painted this panel somewhere between 1503 and 1505, and here Joseph stands at full length on a gold ground, given exactly the weight of Joachim beside him, the father of the Virgin Mary. Joachim is not in the Bible. His story comes from an apocryphal gospel, in which his offering is turned away at the Temple because he has no child, and he goes off to live among his flocks until an angel reaches him. The two of them were painted on the inside of a wing, so they were only on show on the days the altar stood open.