The Nativity

Juan de Flandes

National Gallery of Art

In the stone ruins of a building, a woman, Mary, kneels with her hands in prayer over a thin-limbed baby lying in front of her in this vertical painting. There is a man behind Mary, to our left, two more in a field to our right, and a winged angel in the upper right corner. They all have pale skin. Mary’s unbound blond hair falls over her shoulders. She wears a celestial-blue dress, and her teal-blue cloak is edged with gold. Her body is angled to our right, and she looks down her straight nose at the baby near her knees. The nude baby has blond curls and a chubby tummy and cheeks. An ox and an ass look down at the baby from behind a stone trough to our right. The man behind Mary wears a forest-green cap and scarf over a tomato-red robe. One hand rests on a staff, and he looks up at the angel in the top right corner. An owl looks down at the man from atop the stone ruins, near the top left corner. Two men recline and about a dozen white sheep lie on low hills in the near distance to our right. One of those men sleeps and the other holds up both hands as he looks into the sky. The angel in the top right corner emerges from a petal-pink and pale yellow halo against a star-strewn blue sky. The angel wears rose pink and has dark pink wings. A scroll held across both arms reads, “GLO” and “INECELSIS DEO.”