Joachim

The figures on the interior wall of the west façade of Reims Cathedral, in the trefoil niches of the sculpture gallery behind the portal, depict episodes from the lives of the Virgin, Christ and John the Baptist. On the right, in the third row from the bottom, Joachim (the Virgin’s father) is depicted as an elderly, bearded man, picking up his mantle and stepping towards Saint Anne. According to apocryphal texts, after an angel announced the conception of Mary to them, they went to Jerusalem, where they met by the Golden Gate of the Temple and shared their visions with each other. Joachim’s left hand resting on a staff is not only missing from the cast but also from the original carving. Commissioned by the museum in 1909, the cast was made by August Gerber in Cologne. It was exhibited in the Romanesque Hall in 1910.