page_title: Mérode Altarpiece
section_title: Joseph
hierarchical_section_title: Mérode Altarpiece / Description / Joseph
context_page_description: The Mérode Altarpiece is an oil on oak panel triptych, now in The Cloisters, in New York City. It is unsigned and undated, but attributed to Early Netherlandish painter Robert Campin and an assistant. The three panels represent, from left to right, the donors kneeling in prayer in a garden, the moment of the Annunciation to Mary, which is set in a contemporary, domestic setting, and Saint Joseph, a carpenter with the tools of his trade. The many elements of religious symbolism include the lily and fountain, and the Holy Spirit represented by the rays of light coming through from the left hand window.
  The central panel was completed after 1422, likely between 1425 and 1428, it is thought by a member of Campin's workshop. An earlier version, now in Brussels, may be Campin's original panel. The outer wing panels are later additions by a workshop member, probably on request by the donor who sought to elevate the central panel to a triptych and place himself in the pictorial space. They contain views of the city of Liège, in today's Belgium.
context_section_description: Saint Joseph, a carpenter by trade, occupies the right-hand panel. He is shown at work, boring spike holes into one of the instruments of the Passion. An unusual feature is that, although Mary and Joseph did not marry until after the Annunciation, they are apparently living together and sharing the same space. Joseph is shown with the tools of his craft, visible implements include an ax, saw, rod, and a small footstool sitting before a fire of burning logs. Joseph's presence is may be intended to invoke 10 :15 from the Book of Isaiah: "Shall the ax boast itself against him that heweth there-
  with? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it?
  as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if
  the staff should lift up itself as if was it were no wood." Isaiah's words were intended as incentatory and revolutionary, were followed by a treatise for the salvation of Israel, and protested against an Assyrian king he considered boorish and vainglorious. Given this, Joseph is seen by art historians as a reassuring presence, warding the devil from the center panel.
  Joseph is presented as a relatively old man wearing an eggplant coloured coat and blue turban, in a panel dressed by dark and warm colours, framed by shadows thrown from the window shutters. He works on a mouse trap, probably a symbol of the cross at the Crucifixion, in that it represents an imagined but literal capture of the Devil, said to have held a man in ransom because of the sin of Adam. In some scripts, Christ's naked flesh was served as bait for the devil; "He rejoiced in Christ's death, like a bailiff of death. What he rejoiced in was then his own undoing. The cross of the Lord was the devil's mousetrap; the bait by which he was caught was the Lord's death."
  The background contains a cityscape, probably fictitious, showing the spires of two churches, one of which is now lost, the churches of St. Pierre (left) and Sainte Croix (right) in Liege.
caption: Right panel, detail with street scene and view of Liège
exif: {}