The Prophet Anna

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam acquired this painting by Rembrandt van Rijn (dated 1631) in 1928. The earliest named entry in the painting’s provenance dates from the eighteenth century and simply refers to its subject as ‘an old woman reading a book’.

From the mid-nineteenth century, the subject came to be identified as ‘the Prophetess Anna’ and Rembrandt’s mother was suggested as the model. The current label, Old Woman Reading, probably the Prophetess Anna, is rather more tentative. Nevertheless, we can identify Rembrandt’s mother’s features with confidence because of her multiple appearances in other works by the artist—both paintings and prints—including further examples in which the subject is identified as Anna.

The painting is dominated by the of the woman, who is wrapped in a voluminous russet fur cloak, and wears an elaborate bonnet with long gold braiding, and by the very large, well-thumbed tome she holds on her lap. She is shown deeply absorbed in reading, concentrating her attention on a particular passage (illegible to the viewer). What she has found there seems to have inspired her: her lips are parted as if smiling.

If this is indeed intended to be a representation of Anna, we could suppose that she is searching the Scriptures for some hopeful messianic prophecies, giving praise to God, and rejoicing at the promise of the advent of a Redeemer. Her very old and lined hand, so beautifully rendered, guides her reading, but also caresses the page in front of her with expectation of and tenderness towards the child to come. It is actually this open book, with its content, that forms the real focus of the scene, and upon which the dramatic light in the picture falls.

Rembrandt’s Anna doesn’t quite fit the description Luke gives us of a widow who fasted and prayed day and night in the Temple: she seems too comfortably worldly, well-fed, and well-dressed—and we may even question whether the ‘real’ Anna would have been literate. But in the context of this artwork, her deep engagement with the book and what she reads about the redemption of Jerusalem, is what really matters.

Originally the central part of a triptych, this large wooden panel (257 x 168 cm) was painted in 1342 by Ambrogio Lorenzetti for the altar of a side-chapel of Siena Cathedral, one of a set of altarpieces honouring the Virgin Mary, Siena’s protector.

The painting is striking not just for the richness of its gold decoration and precious pigments, including lapis lazuli, but also for the magnificently ornate architecture and daring perspective of the scene, created by receding paving slabs, columns, and arches, and by the progressive darkness engulfing the space beyond.

The modern-day title is Presentation at the Temple, but in fact the theme is a conflation of two distinct ceremonies: the Presentation of the Firstborn (thirty days after a male child’s birth: Numbers 3:45–51; 18:15–16) and the Purification of the Mother (forty days after the child’s birth: Leviticus 12).

Mary’s purification follows Old Testament precepts, but Jesus’s presentation is celebrated in the Gospel text (though the mouths of Simeon and Anna) as heralding a new era of redemption. This straddling of traditionsin which the links between former and latter covenants are made manifest, is made explicit by the presence in the composition of figures from the Hebrew Bible. In the spandrels at the top of the altarpiece the figures of Moses and Malachi hold scrolls with verses from Leviticus 12:8 and from Malachi’s messianic prophecy (Malachi 3:1) respectively. Below them, on the capitals of two pillars, the artist has depicted statues of Moses holding the tablets of the Law, and of Joshua his successor, who led the Israelites into the Promised Land.

Whilst the High Priest sacrifices Mary’s modest offering of two birds (Leviticus 12:8), the protagonists, clothed in sumptuous exotic silks, stand in two groups in the foreground. At left, we see Joseph, with Mary and two women wearing earrings in the manner of female Jews from the artist’s own time (Hughes 1986); at right, the baby Jesus (kicking and sucking his finger) is cradled by the aged Simeon, now ready to be ‘dismissed in peace’ (Luke 22:29). Meanwhile Anna, standing tall and dignified, holds a scroll inscribed with her own prophecy recorded in Luke 2:38, and points to Jesus the Redeemer.

The painting is not just a visual delight, but a learned exercise in exegesis, articulating a Christian understanding of the bridge between the Old and the New Testaments.

References

Hughes, Diane Owen. 1986. ‘Distinguishing Signs: Ear-Rings, Jews and Franciscan Rhetoric in the Italian Renaissance City’, Past & Present 112: 3–59

We know something about this work by Paul Cézanne thanks to his friend, the art critic and writer Joachim Gasquet, who had his own portrait painted about the same time, in 1896. He reports seeing a number of Cézanne’s works during a sitting, including this, apparently on the floor of the study, with ‘a pipe dripping on it’. Indeed, the National Gallery also reports how the lower left-hand corner is marked by splashed water or steam.

Gasquet also tells us about the identity of the sitter: according to him, she was a former nun who had run away from her convent, and whom Cézanne had engaged as a servant.

An Old Woman with a Rosary deploys a quiet palette of dark blues and browns in the cangiant (Italian: cangiante) rendition of light and shade on her dress, as well as a warm, ruddy colour for her flesh. The woman is sitting in a shady corner, perhaps in a pew. The composition is dominated by the triangle formed by the top of her head and her arms bent at the elbow.

The woman’s face and hands stand out from the gloom as she leans forward, firmly clutching her rosary beads, which she passes through the fingers of her left hand. Her presence is solid and self-contained, her large, dark eyes unblinking, resisting our gaze and curiosity about her previous life. Her intense inner life of prayer, matured over many years, is all that matters and defines her now: her rosary is like her buckler (Psalm 91:4).

Cézanne would have observed his sitter over an extended period, and got to know her. Her outward beauty may have faded, but this portrait is entirely sympathetic: it captures the woman’s dignity and quiet resilience. It conveys something of the depth of her spirituality, and devoted life of prayer, which, just as for the Prophet Anna, would have sustained her at times of crisis and shaped her character. This is a very tender, intimate portrayal of an elderly woman, capturing her enduring and profound faith.