Vittore Carpaccio is considered one of the best storytellers of his time. This painting shows why. The painting shows the birth of Mary. The birth takes place in a wealthy household. A wet nurse wants to bathe the child in a shallow wooden bathtub. A servant takes care of Anna, who has just given birth to her child, little Mary. At the front of the painting, a woman sits on a low wall and unrolls a bandage. In the back rooms, two other servants can be seen doing housework. Only Joachim, the sole man in the painting, is idle. He is leaning on his stick and looking at the scene.
Carpaccio painted the picture for the Scuola degli Albanesi, the meeting place of the Albanian community in Venice. In Carpaccio's work, Mary is born in a wealthy household in Venice. On the wall hangs a plaque with Hebrew characters.
Shortly before Carpaccio painted his "Birth of Mary", a textbook for the Hebrew language had been published in Venice. The writing on the plaque comes from this book. At the time of Mary's birth, Hebrew was spoken and written. But Carpaccio did not want to depict a Jewish household in Venice. With the plaque he brought the two together: the story of Mary's birth, from pre-Christian times, takes place in his present day in a wealthy household in Venice.