The Presentation of Christ in the Temple

Dürer · c. 1504–1505
The Cleveland Museum of Art

Dürer made the woodcuts of the Life of the Virgin in Nuremberg around 1501–05 and sold them as single sheets; in 1511 he published the series as a book.

Dürer sets the Temple as a high hall of Renaissance columns with a coffered ceiling. At the altar the old man Simeon receives the child, Mary kneels with a little cage of doves, and a crowd of women and men presses in from behind.

From the text

His parents brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (Luke 2:22)

The sacrifice: “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons” (Luke 2:24)

Simeon took him in his arms (Luke 2:28)

The artist’s own

The Temple as a columned hall of the Italian Renaissance

A man leaning round the great column at the left

Details

The doves

Mary kneels and holds out a small cage of doves.

Simeon

A bearded old man bends over the child at the altar.

The hall

Columns with carved capitals carry a ceiling of deep beams.

At the column

A man peers round the great column in the front.

Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471–1528. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Dudley P. Allen Fund, 1959.99.13) · Woodcut · Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access: Collection API record "share_license_status": "CC0" (Creative Commons Zero, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).

The verses

Luke 2:22–28And when the time of purification according to the Law of Moses was complete, His parents brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord: “Every firstborn male shall be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer the sacrifice specified in the Law of the Lord: “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” Now there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Led by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for Him what was customary under the Law, Simeon took Him in his arms and blessed God, saying: