The Nativity (c. 1465): Artwork and History

The Nativity (c. 1465) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Circle of Donatello (Italian, c. 1386–1466).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This relief shows the Virgin worshipping the Christ Child, framed by an ox and an ass, while Saint Joseph sleeps at the right. It is typical of a kind of popular, devotional image from the 15th century that could be mechanically reproduced. This composition exists in numerous replicas, which attest to its popularity, and appears to derive from a directly modeled terracotta prototype, now in Prato, Italy. The Virgin and Child are based on an autograph terracotta by Donatello, but the remainder of the composition appears to have been expanded by another hand.

Object facts

• Title: The Nativity
• Date: c. 1465
• Artist attribution: Circle of Donatello (Italian, c. 1386–1466)
• Place of origin: Italy
• Medium: Stucco and polychrome
• Dimensions: 72.4 × 78.7 × 12.1 cm (28 1/2 × 31 × 4 3/4 in.)
• Type: Sculpture
• Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
• Reference number: 1933.1007

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.