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The Nativity of the Virgin
Sano di Pietro1448/1452
University of Michigan Museum of Art
Ann Arbor, United States
Details
- Title: The Nativity of the Virgin
- Creator: Sano Di Pietro
- Creator Lifespan: 1405/1481
- Creator Nationality: Italian
- Creator Gender: male
- Creator Death Place: Siena, Italy
- Creator Birth Place: Siena, Italy
- Date Created: 1448/1452
- Location: Siena, Italy
- Physical Dimensions: w57 x h41.7 x d3.5 cm (framed)
- Label Copy: Staged in an affluent fifteenth-century home, this scene depicts a celebrated event in Christian history: the birth of the Virgin Mary. Saint Anne, the Virgin’s mother, rests in bed on the right, surrounded by bustling birth attendants and a woman seated at the foot of the bed, who may be Elizabeth, the future mother of John the Baptist. All the figures in the room turn toward the infant Mary, who is held by a servant, and the angel that appears above her head. Outside the birth chamber, Mary’s father Joachim (distinguished by his halo) and a companion receive news of the birth from a child. This panel once accompanied four other scenes from the life of the Virgin to form a predella, a row of small horizontal paintings below the larger main panel of an altarpiece. This predella was commissioned from Sano di Pietro as part of the refurbishment of an earlier and venerated altarpiece installed in the chapel of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena.
- Type: Painting
- External Link: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-1977-sl-2.1/1977_2.1.JPG?lasttype=boolean;lastview=thumbnail;resnum=1;sel9=ic_exact;size=20;sort=relevance;start=1;subview=detail;view=entry;rgn1=musart_an;select1=ic_exact;q1=1977%2F2.1
- Medium: tempera and gold on panel
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