Fourth Sunday of Advent

Title: The Presentation in the Temple

Artist: Jean Bourdichon

Medium: Tempera and gold on parchment

Size: 24 x 17 cm

Date: 1499

Location: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Luke 2:22-32: After the days required by Moses’ Teachings to make a mother clean had passed, Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem. They took Jesus to present him to the Lord. They did exactly what was written in the Lord’s Teachings: “Every firstborn boy is to be set apart as holy to the Lord.” They also offered a sacrifice as required by the Lord’s Teachings: “a pair of mourning doves or two young pigeons.” A man named Simeon was in Jerusalem. He lived an honorable and devout life. He was waiting for the one who would comfort Israel. The Holy Spirit was with Simeon and had told him that he wouldn’t die until he had seen the Messiah, whom the Lord would send. Moved by the Spirit, Simeon went into the temple courtyard. Mary and Joseph were bringing the child Jesus into the courtyard at the same time. They brought him so that they could do for him what Moses’ Teachings required. Then Simeon took the child in his arms and praised God by saying, “Now, Lord, you are allowing your servant to leave in peace as you promised. My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all people to see. He is a light that will reveal salvation to the nations and bring glory to your people Israel.”

This leaf depicting the Presentation in the Temple originally comes from a manuscript known as the Hours of Louis XII, so-called after its patron King Louis XII of France, and was one of the greatest French manuscripts of its time. Here Mary is seen in half-length, situated at the front of the space, close to the viewer who seems to peer over her shoulder at the scene of the presentation of her infant son at the altar of the priest Simeon. The purpose of compositions such as this one - which were increasingly popular in the second half of the 15th century - was to bring viewers physically closer to the narrative and actively engage them in the event being portrayed.

Jean Bourdichon (c.1457 – 1521) was a French miniature painter and manuscript illuminator at the court of France with a career that lasted nearly forty years during the reigns of Louis XI, Charles VIII, Louis XII and Francis I of France. As court painter, he designed stained glass windows, coins, gold plate, illuminated manuscripts, and executed independent paintings. Charles VIII set up a workshop for him in his castle at Plessis-lès-Tours and gave large dowries to Bourdichon's daughters, and Bourdichon himself became a wealthy landowner. Today, only one of his panel paintings is known to survive and he is therefore known primarily from his work in manuscripts. He is last recorded in 1520, receiving payment for the decoration of tents for the opulent encounter of Henry VIII and Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.