A Gothic stained glass roundel with Saint Joachim and Saint Anne meeting by the Golden Gate
Blue and white glass, vitreous paint. Depicting two figures facing each other against a tower-like architectural backdrop and a blue sky. The oblong yellow pane below them inscribed "AVR/EAPO/RTA". The blue areas decorated with tendrils. Finely outlined and painted with a beaded border. One small pane in the upper section loose (but extant), some older cracks to the glass and the old leading, a small repair to the glass on the right. Corrosion, especially in the red and pale purple panes and painted corrosion. D 44 cm.
13th century with later amendments.
This work depicts the meeting of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne at the Golden Gate in Jerusalem, which is recorded in the early Christian apocryphal protoevangelium of James. The iconography can be identified on account of the tower-like structure in the background and the inscription "AVR/EAPO/RTA" (Golden Gate) in the centre. The fact that Joachim is depicted here with wings does not fit the story. However, the wings may have been added later in the erroneous assumption that the work depicts the Annunciation.
An expertise from Dr. Heather Gilderdale Scott, committee secretary of Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (Medieval Stained Glass in Great Britain) is available upon request.
Provenance
Austrian private collection, auctioned by Kinsky, Vienna in April 2017, lot 1.
English private ownership.