After A Composition By Jean-baptiste Jouvenet, The Visitation

"After a composition by Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet, The Visitation" After a composition by Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet The Visitation oil on panel 45.5 x 34.5 cm

The scene illustrates the visit of Mary, pregnant with Christ, to her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist. For this meeting, she travels from Nazareth in Galilee to Hebron in Judea. Mary, accompanied by Joseph, stands on the right with their donkey. On the left, the priest Zechariah, Elizabeth's husband, stands back. This scene traditionally symbolizes the prophecy of John the Baptist, in other words, the link between the old world and the new world. Elizabeth appears as an old woman. In his composition, the painter does not retain the traditional episode of the meeting of Mary where the two women dialogue but the more rarely treated "Magnificat". Mary, glorious, raises her hands and eyes to the sky, haloed by light. The painter accentuates the effect of glory by placing the two women raised on steps in the center of the painting, and all the characters arranged in a circle around them.