The Nativity (1500–05): Artwork and History

The Nativity (1500–05) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci; Italian, 1445/46-1523).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

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.

Object facts

• Title: The Nativity
• Date: 1500–05
• Artist attribution: Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci; Italian, 1445/46-1523)
• Place of origin: Italy
• Medium: Tempera on panel, transferred to canvas
• Dimensions: 26.2 × 46.3 cm (10 5/16 × 18 1/4 in.)
• Type: Painting
• Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
• Reference number: 1933.1025

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.