The Nativity
Artist: Jacopo Tintoretto (Italian, 1518 or 1519 - 1594)
Original Dimensions: 37 1/2" x 46 1/2"
Location: National Gallery of Art, London
About Artwork: (About 1590) "Mary and Joseph kneel before the baby Jesus, who sleeps wrapped in a woven basket of sticks and straw. Joseph, the elderly carpenter, touches his rough fingers together in prayer. He holds a stick like those from which the basket is made, and two knives in a sheath lie in his lap. Mary presses her hands over her heart. The stable is made of thatch over crude timber supports and the baby’s blanket is ragged and patched. Perhaps Joseph has cut the sticks with his knife and woven the simple wicker basket himself. A long swaddling cloth with a cord tie, in which the baby will be tightly bound, has been hung up to dry. The fresh cuts on the ends of the sticks are perilously sharp for a baby’s bed and, together with the knives and shroud-like swaddling cloth, hint at the pain of Christ’s Passion (his torture and crucifixion) that lies ahead." - (National Gallery of Art, London)

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