The Nativity
Perugino
1500–1505
- Medium
- Tempera on panel, transferred to canvas
- Dimensions
- 26.2 × 46.3 cm (10 5/16 × 18 1/4 in.)
- Genre
- tempera
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Styles
Tags
religionpaintingreligious attirepaintChicago World's Fairs16th CenturycanvasJesusCentury of Progressbabiestransferringreligious figuresplant materialSkyanimalsdogpanel paintingfiguremenpainting (image making)painting techniquesItalianreligious scenesfiguresVirgin Maryholy familyRenaissancewood (plant material)landscapeChristian subjectssixteenth centuryreligiousworld's fairscloudsAngelsbiblicalorganic materialNarrativewoman with childrennativity scenestreespanel (wood)european paintingChristianitycowstemperaNature
About
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 once surmounted the predella as the focal point of the altarpiece has not been identified.
