Lunette: Jacob and Joseph

Matthew's Gospel opens with a long list of fathers and sons, and its last link before the birth reads, Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus. This lunette carries those two final names, IACOB and IOSEPH. It sits on the entrance wall, where the genealogy that runs along both side walls from the altar comes to its end, and Michelangelo probably painted it second, at the very start of the first campaign.

On the left a frowning man wrapped in a heavy yellow cloak is usually taken for Jacob. His face is built up with fine, cross-hatched strokes, while the woman and child behind him are only sketched. On the right a woman in a pink mantle turns her head toward us over her shoulder. In the most common reading she is Mary, the small child held in the shadow by the man behind her is the infant Christ, and a little girl twists round to hold out a mirror toward him. Some scholars swap the roles and see Joseph in the yellow cloak, though the prominence of the woman and her pink mantle, a colour long tied to Mary, keep that the less favoured view.