The Nativity
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
sheet: 9 x 6 in. (22.9 x 15.2 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Phyllis Massar, 2011
Accession Number
2012.136.704
Tags
Art Historical Context
Behold *The Nativity*, a engraving collaboratively attributed to Dutch masters Jacob Math and Abraham Bloemaert. This intimate print, measuring just 9 x 6 inches, captures the sacred moment of Christ's birth, centering the Madonna and Child amid the humble stable scene—a timeless motif in Christian art. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, it entered the collection through the generous bequest of Phyllis Massar 2011. Engraving, the medium here, was a pinnacle of technical virtuosity in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, especially in the Netherlands ...
About the Artist
Jacob Matham|Abraham Bloemaert · 1571–1631
**Jacob Matham: Master Engraver of Haarlem** Jacob Matham was born on October 15, 1571, in Haarlem, in the Northern Netherlands, into a burgeoning artistic milieu. Following his father's early death, his mother married the renowned painter and engraver Hendrick Goltzius in 1579, who adopted the young Jacob and trained him rigorously in the workshop as his stepson and pupil. Matham's first signed ...