The Nativity

ArtistAttributed to Bartolomeo Bellano Italian, b. Padua 1437/38–d. Padua 1496/97

Datecirca 1460–1475

MediumPolychrome stucco relief

Dimensions22 x 20 1/4 in. (55.9 x 51.4 cm)

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LineAnonymous Gift

Object numberG.56.8.1

On View

On view

Label TextThis sculpture emulates a gilded terracotta relief of the Virgin and Child (now in the V&A Museum, London) ascribed to the Florentine sculptor Donatello, who designed and carved scores of similar reliefs to satisfy the demand for personal devotional images in fifteenth-century Florence.

Donatello’s innovation, imitated in this pigmented stucco cast by a Paduan sculptor associated with Donatello, was to depict the Virgin embracing the Christ child in a distinctively human-maternal—as opposed to divine—manner. Thus Christ grabs the strings of his mother’s coif while she cradles him. The ass and ox peeping out from under the swaddling add to the scene’s charm.
[L. Humphrey, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceCollection of Signor Stephano Bardini; sold at Christie's May 26, 1902, lot 55.
Published References"Acquisitions," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 1, no. 1 (Spring 1957), listed 26 (as by Donatello), illus. (b-w) 29, fig. 1.

W. R. V[alentiner], "Opening of Four New Galleries of Early Sculpture and Decorative Arts," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 1, no. 2 (Summer 1957), mentioned 22 (as by Donatello).

Masterpieces of Art (exhibition catalogue) (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1957), cat. no. 6 (as by Donatello), illus. (b-w) 38, fig. 6.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–present. Object Rights Statement

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