Mystic Nativity
The original, as its museum records it
Every line above is reproduced from the holding institution’s own catalogue entry, which is linked. Where their title, date or attribution differs from ours, theirs is the one printed here.
The file this print is made from
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View in the galleryAbout this painting
This is not the stable of the Christmas story. Across the top, in Greek, Botticelli writes himself into the end of the world — “I, Alessandro” — dating the picture to the troubles of Italy and to the loosing of the devil for three and a half years, after which, it says, he will be chained.
So the olive is the argument. Angels bear it, men wear it, and the three pairs embracing below are, for Jennifer Sliwka, the peace expected after Christ's return, arriving as the devils go into the rock.
His only signed and dated painting. Luke 2:7.
Sources: The National Gallery, London, NG1034 · Rab Hatfield, 'Botticelli's Mystic Nativity, Savonarola and the Millennium,' Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 58 (1995), 88–113 · Jennifer Sliwka, 'The Painter & The Preacher,' The Brooklyn Rail, July 2021
And she brought forth her first born son and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger: because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:7 · Douay-Rheims (Challoner)
Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 6,000 px master of the original. The whole image is printed — never cropped to fit the sheet — so every sheet carries an archival margin, and the dimensions and resolution listed above are the ones you receive.