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Your galleryThe Nativity, from Life of the Virgin
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Find Joseph’s lantern, the angels singing at the top right and the small plant growing between the cracked stones in front.
Schongauer sets the birth of Christ in a ruined building with Gothic vaults. Mary kneels before the Child, who lies on a fold of her cloak, while Joseph holds a lantern, the ox and ass look on, shepherds peer in from the left and angels sing above the arch. Like all his prints it carries his initials, so its maker is never in doubt, a first for a printmaker.
Engraving in black on cream laid paper · Image/sheet, cut to platemark: 25.5 × 16.6 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Late Gothic and Early Renaissance
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Nativity, from Life of the Virgin
- Artist
- Martin Schongauer German, c. 1430/50-1491
- Date
- 1470/75
- Medium
- Engraving in black on cream laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image/sheet, cut to platemark: 25.5 × 16.6 cm (10 1/16 × 6 9/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Bequest of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.