The Nativity

Zanobi Strozzi's Nativity from 1417 places this Florentine painter among the very early practitioners of the Florentine Renaissance, active at the moment when the new naturalistic approach developed by Masaccio was beginning to transform Florentine painting. Strozzi was closely associated with Fra Angelico, with whom he collaborated on illuminated manuscripts, and his painting reflects the delicate transitional moment between the International Gothic manner still dominant in 1417 and the new spatial naturalism that would soon transform the visual language of sacred painting. The Nativity subject, depicting the birth of Christ in a stable with the Virgin and Joseph adoring the infant, was among the most intimate and humanly accessible of sacred subjects, suited to a period that was developing new approaches to devotional painting based on emotional identification rather than hierarchical reverence.

The tempera and gold on wood demonstrates the refined technique of Florentine devotional painting with delicate figural modeling over rich gold ground. The precise detail and luminous colors create a jewel-like quality characteristic of the miniaturist tradition.