The Nativity
1500/05
Medium
Tempera on panel, transferred to canvas
Dimensions
26.2 × 46.3 cm (10 5/16 × 18 1/4 in.)
Classification
tempera
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
16205
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
These four panels, together with another one depicting the Resurrection (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), once constituted a predella—a series of small pictures, often narrative scenes, forming the base of an altarpiece. These predella scenes depict moments when Jesus’s divine nature was revealed: at his birth, at his baptism, during his conversation at a well with a Samarian woman, at his res-urrection, and through his appearance to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection. The painting that...