Artwork Page for The Nativity

Details / Information for The Nativity

Series Title: The Life of the Virgin

The Nativity

c. 1502–3

Albrecht Dürer

(German, 1471–1528)
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Culture
Germany, early 16th Century
Medium
woodcut
Measurements
Sheet: 29.3 x 20.8 cm (11 9/16 x 8 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
Dudley P. Allen Fund 1959.99.10
Catalogue raisonné
Meder 197
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

These eight woodcuts (1959.99.8–15) progress from Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would bear the Son of God, to the events of her early motherhood and beyond. This included the joy of sharing her pregnancy with her cousin Elizabeth, Jesus’s birth, and the subsequent arrival of the magi. After Jesus’s circumcision and presentation at the temple the Holy Family fled to Egypt to avoid Herod and stayed there for several years. The seemingly out of place last scene shows a glimpse of their daily life in Egypt as Joseph continues his carpentry and Mary spins wool. The Holy Family is surrounded by angels and helpful putti and are blessed by God the Father and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove overhead.
A vertically oriented print in dense black-inked fine lines depicts people with light skin tones gathering around the baby Christ in a building with one wall missing. Three angels gather over the straw-stuffed basket in which Christ lies. Mary, a woman with wavy hair covered with a hood kneels and gazes at him. Two more people kneel while entering a doorway behind her. On the left, another person enters through a doorway behind the child.

The Nativity

c. 1502–3

Albrecht Dürer

(German, 1471–1528)
Germany, early 16th Century

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