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Joseph's limited profile in Scripture inspired his admirers to greater feats of pious interpertation.

Bringing up the Rear
The Virgin Mary's Walk Across the Mountains, 1841, Joseph von Fuehrich. This painting recapitulates a very early theme in portrayals of Joseph: that he was somehow removed from the central action (in this case, Mary and the angels), just as he was uninvolved in Christ's conception

No Spring Chicken
Rest on the Flight to Egypt, c. 17th century, Simone Cantarini. Another way of showing Joseph as somehow "apart" was to picture him asleep, which was also a reference to his prophetic dreams. The convention of Joseph as an old man dates back to early non-Biblical Christan books called the apocrypha, which placed his age as high as 91, presumably so that Mary's virginity was more plausible


Just the Two of Them
St. Joseph and the Christ Child, early 18th Century. Painted by an unknown artist in Cusco, Peru, this double portrait indicates Joseph's upgrade during the Catholic Counter-reformation. He is pictured as young, and allowed to appear —without Mary!— in parental pose with Jesus

Royalty
St. Joseph and the Christ Child Enthroned with Four Angels, c. 1700-1740, School of Cuzco, private collection. In time, by virtue of Joseph's earthly authority over his family in Nazareth, champions like Teresa of Avila claimed that in heaven, "God does whatever he commands." Not everyone went so far, but Catholics came to understand him as an intercessor of a potency second only to that of the Virgin herself

The Craftsman
The Childhood of Christ, c. 1620, Gerrit van Honthorst. Joseph, long a patron of carpenters, was eventually seen as representing all workers. Paintings like this one of him in his shop often made use of a woodworking context to prefigure the nailing of Christ to the Cross at the Crucifixion

Chief of Staff
Marriage of the Virgin Mary, detail, 1500-1504, Pietro Perugino. Joseph's iconography often included a flowering staff in reference to an early non-Biblical account of the divine sign that he was chosen to be Mary's protector: his wooden rod bloomed and/or produced a dove

Chief of Staff
Marriage of the Virgin Mary, detail, 1500-1504, Pietro Perugino. Joseph's iconography often included a flowering staff in reference to an early non-Biblical account of the divine sign that he was chosen to be Mary's protector: his wooden rod bloomed and/or produced a dove