Masaccio (1401-1428) Desco da parto (Birth plate) c.1423 Tempera on poplar panel, diameter 66 cm Gemäldegalerie, Berlin In the 15th century, it was customary in Florence to give families a so-called birth plate or desco da parto after the birth of…
Piero della Francesca (c.1416-1492) Natività (The Nativity) early 1480s Oil on poplar, 124.4 x 122.6 cm National Gallery, London Piero della Francesca depicted Christ’s Nativity as a miraculous vision materialising on top of a hill near his hometown in rural Tuscany. He…
Perugino (c.1446-1523) La Natività (The Nativity) 1500–1505 Tempera on panel, transferred to canvas, 26.2 × 46.3 cm Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Perugino’s serene and decorous art was widely influential in his native region of Umbria and beyond, most famously through his…
Tintoretto, Jacopo (1518-1594) Natività (Nativity) c.1585–1594 Oil on canvas, 111 x 80 cm Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires The Virgin, reclining on a hay mattress, contemplates the Child Jesus lying on a blue cloth. Saint Joseph, on the…
Botticelli, Sandro (c.1445-1510) Natività di Gesù con san Giovannino (The Birth of Christ) 1476–1478 Fresco, 200 x 300 cm Santa Maria Novella, Firenze The lunette on the central portal of the Basilica.
Botticelli, Sandro (c.1445-1510) Natività mistica (Mystic Nativity) 1500 Oil on canvas, 108.6 x 74.9 cm National Gallery, London The infant Christ reaches up towards the Virgin Mary, oblivious of his visitors – the Three Kings on the left and the shepherds on…