The Angel's Message to Joachim

Restorers found this picture on the back of another one. It was painted on the outside of an altar wing, the side people saw when the altarpiece was closed, while the Visitation of Mary filled the inside. The wing came to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1927, and during its restoration the two faces were sawn apart. The outer side is now less than half a centimetre thick. The scene follows the refusal of Joachim's offering in the Temple. He has gone out to his flocks, and an angel in a golden robe, with red wings and a stole marked with crosses, tells him that Anne will bear a child. The sky behind them glows red under dark streaks of cloud, with birds crossing it, and at Joachim's feet a dog lifts its head.