Visitation is a 1503 woodcut by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, from his series on the Life of the Virgin. It depicts the Visitation, an episode in the Gospel of Luke, Luke 1:39–56 when Mary, heavily pregnant, travels to see her much older cousin Elisabeth, who is now also late with child.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/The_Visitation%2C_from_The_Life_of_the_Virgin_MET_DP816275.jpg/250px-The_Visitation%2C_from_The_Life_of_the_Virgin_MET_DP816275.jpg)
The women embrace at the house of Elisabeth's husband Zacharias, who is shown standing at the doorway to the left of the woodcut. Both Zacharias and his wife are old; he is struck into silence[1] by the fact of his long barren wife having finally conceived a child.[2]
The highly detailed landscape shown in the background is likely inspired by the artist's two journeys through the Alps during 1494–95.
See also
edit- Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate (Dürer), another in the series.
Notes
edit- ^ According to Benedictus Chelidonius he appears as if a "weak faith had closed his tongue".
- ^ Nürnberg, 67
Sources
edit- Nürnberg, Verlag Hans Carl. Dürer in Dublin: Engravings and woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer. Chester Beatty Library, 1983