The Nativity
Petrus Christus·c. 1450
Historical Context
Petrus Christus's Nativity from around 1450 is one of his most important works, depicting the birth of Christ in the Flemish manner that combined the intimate warmth of the domestic scene with the theological significance of the divine incarnation. Christus's Nativity shows his mastery of Flemish technical convention — the precise rendering of light on different surfaces, the detailed architectural setting, the precisely observed vegetation in the landscape background — while demonstrating his own contribution: a greater spatial rationalism and a more accessible emotional tone than his predecessor Van Eyck had typically employed.
Technical Analysis
Christus's oil on panel demonstrates his characteristic approach to unified space and atmosphere, with luminous Eyckian glazes creating a warm, enveloping light that bathes the nativity scene in sacred radiance.
Provenance
Señora O. Yturbe, Madrid.[1] (Franz M. Zatzenstein, Berlin and later London); [2] sold 1930 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); purchased 15 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[3] gift 1937 to NGA. [1] The picture seems never to have belonged to the Duchess of Parcent, as claimed in _Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America_, New York, 1941: no. 177; see letter of April 1982 from her daughter, the Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, in NGA curatorial files. [2] Zatzenstein was the founder of the Galerie Matthiesen, Berlin. [3] The original Duveen Brothers invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files. See also Duveen Brothers Records, Getty Research Institute, Series II, Folder 17 (Copies NGA curatorial files).
