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This is one of four panels that originally made up a pair of painted shutters to cover a central image, probably of the Virgin Mary crowned in the heavens. The outside of each shutter was decorated with a saint, the inside with an angel. When the shutters were closed, Saint Joseph would have been on the left.Saint Joseph is more commonly portrayed as an elderly man, but here he is quite young, with a full dark beard and a turban. He appears like this in other paintings by Moretto.Joseph's staff is blossoming with flowers of the oleander plant, which is sometimes known in Italian as mazza di San Giuseppe ('Staff of Saint Joseph'). The flowering rod represents the staff that broke into blossom to show that Joseph was chosen to marry the Virgin Mary, as told in the Golden Legend, a thirteenth-century compilation of stories about the saints.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

Saint Joseph

Date

about 1540

Medium

Oil on wood

Measurements

H 153.6 x W 54.1 cm

Accession number

NG2092

Acquisition method

Bequeathed by the Misses Cohen as part of the John Samuel collection, 1906

Work type

Painting

The National Gallery, London

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

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Artist or maker

Moretto da Brescia

c.1498–1554

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5 more