The Visitation — Dürer · Bible Explorer

The Visitation

Dürer · c. 1504
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.

Mary and Elizabeth meet outside a stone house and take each other by the arms. Women who came with Mary wait at the right, Zechariah looks out of the doorway, and a wide mountain landscape with a castle opens behind them.

From the text

Mary hurries “to a town in the hill country of Judah” (Luke 1:39)

She enters the home of Zechariah and greets Elizabeth (Luke 1:40)

The artist’s own

Companions travelling with Mary, which the text does not mention

Alpine mountains and a castle

A little dog in the foreground

Details

The greeting

The two women clasp each other, heads close.

Zechariah

An old bearded man stands in the doorway holding his hat.

The hill country

Steep peaks, a castle and a winding road.

The companions

Women in long veils wait at the side.

Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471–1528. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Dudley P. Allen Fund, 1959.99.9) · 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 1:39–45In those days Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah, where she entered the home of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord’s word to her will be fulfilled.”