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The Nativity
  • Date: c.1340-80
  • Object Type: Painting
  • Medium: Tempera on poplar panel
  • Object size: 14.1 x 12.1 cm
  • Image size: 14 x 10.3 cm, painted area, recto
  • Image size: 11.3 x 8 cm, painted area, verso, maximum
  • Inv: P549
  • Location: Smoking Room
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Description
Provenance
Further Reading
  • Mary lays the infant Christ, wrapped in swaddling clothes, in the manger of a stable ‘because there was no room for them in the Inn’. The ox and ass, and groups of rejoicing angels adore the child. The picture closely follows the account of the Nativity found in Saint Luke’s Gospel (II, 6-7). The picture is a fragment from the left wing of a triptych, and carries on the verso the crudely painted truncated figure of a martyred saint in a light brown habit with a palm. It follows a Daddi workshop formula, which exists in various versions, including the left wing of a triptych in the National Gallery of Scotland and a predella panel in the Uffizi, Florence.