Virgin and Child with Saint Anne

Anne with Two Others referred to in Christian art is a representation of St. Anne with her daughter Mary and the infant Jesus. The image type is one of the devotional pictures that have emerged in the late Middle Ages and particularly common and multiform in Germany and the Netherlands, but also in Italy and Spain. Devotional images served as an inspiration and an express invitation of pity and compassion, which could " increase mystical identification" to a.

The term selbdritt is an old word for " as part of a group of three " or " threes ".

Iconography

The oldest known image of the Virgin Mary, the wall painting in the so-called "three mothers - niche " dating from the 8th century in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua in the Roman Forum is received in Rome. Shown is the Mother of God with the Christ Child in a mandorla, on the left with St. Elizabeth. Saint John the Baptist and to the right the hl. Anna and her daughter Mary. From the middle of the 13th century can be propagated examples of pictorial representations Anna- selbdritt find, such as in St. Nicholas' Church of Stralsund, see Anne with Two Others ( Stralsund ). Typical of these early images is compared to St. Anne relatively small, girlish executed figure of Mary. A particularly well-known painting is a representation of Leonardo da Vinci, which was created 1500-1510 during his stay in Florence. Beginning with Sigmund Freud Anna was selbdritt of Leonardo da Vinci repeated the point of psychological considerations.

Overall, a great many sculptures, paintings and altarpieces of St. Anne are selbdritt get in the churches in Europe. The motif is also found on several coins and seals, the town of Annaberg -Buchholz in the Erzgebirge wearing a Anna selbdritt coat of arms. Occasionally, the presentation still to Joachim and Joseph was expanded to a larger family picture, the so-called Holy Kinship. It is sometimes also Emerentia, mother Anna, added selbviert to design a Emerentia, examples of this image type can be found for example in Minden Cathedral and the Cathedral of Limburg.

Anne cult

The result of the picture type of Anna is selbdritt from the Anne cult of the Middle Ages. But since there is no biblical sources is the existence of the parents of Mary, Mother Anna and Father Joachim, to which later the mother of Anna's name Emerantia came, the artists based on many issues the life of Mary, which also include Anne with Two Others heard on apocryphal Gospels and on the popular Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine.

In the apocryphal Protevangelium of James reported an elderly temple priest named Joachim, who with his wife Anna was still childless after a long marriage, and the victim had been rejected in the temple of his superior priest for that reason. Then both Joachim and Anna, an angel appeared, the birth of a daughter, Mary prophesied them. The representation of Mary in the Temple, also known as " the Temple of Mary ", was also a popular theme in Western art.

Was boosted Anne cult in the wake of the introduction of the Anna- day in the Roman calendar of saints by Pope Sixtus IV and the introduction of Anna feast by Pope Gregory XIII.

Many of the numerous brotherhoods, especially in Germany chose Anna as the patron saint and donated chapels and altars that often statues of Anna were erected selbdritt. Indication of the spread in Europe Anne cult is the large number of the Anna Patrozinien in Western, Central and Eastern Europe. The large role that Anna altars played there in popular piety is reflected in the large number of attached Ex - voto plaques and pictures.