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Source Description
In this “tondo” (circular painting) of the Nativity, the Virgin Mary kneels in adoration of the Christ Child while Saint Joseph is asleep in the background. At the right, the ox and ass, both present in the biblical accounts of the Nativity, look out from the door of a ruined building. A white dove, representing the Holy Spirt, is perched on a stone above the Virgin's head. Tondi were popular in Renaissance Florence, especially in domestic spaces where they were typically hung high on the wall. They were often commissioned to give thanks to God for special events such as the birth of a child—hence the large number of tondi depicting the Nativity. Artists often calculated their compositions in tondi to correspond to the shape of the panel; here, the curved bodies of the Christ Child and the Virgin compliment the panel's circular form.Painted around 1500, this tondo has been attributed to the so-called “Pseudo Granacci,” a name given by art historians to an anonymous Florentine painter whose works used to be confused with those of Franceso Granacci (1469-1543). While it shows some similarities to that artist's works there are also notable differences: the Christ Child, for instance, is more robust and the landscape sparser than the painter's more characteristic tondi, such as those at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, or the Galleria Palatina in Florence. The attribution therefore remains open.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
2457
label
The Nativity
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
2457
sourceUrl
contentType
drawing
stage
normalized
title
The Nativity
description
In this “tondo” (circular painting) of the Nativity, the Virgin Mary kneels in adoration of the Christ Child while Saint Joseph is asleep in the background. At the right, the ox and ass, both present in the biblical accounts of the Nativity, look out from the door of a ruined building. A white dove, representing the Holy Spirt, is perched on a stone above the Virgin's head. Tondi were popular in Renaissance Florence, especially in domestic spaces where they were typically hung high on the wall. They were often commissioned to give thanks to God for special events such as the birth of a child—hence the large number of tondi depicting the Nativity. Artists often calculated their compositions in tondi to correspond to the shape of the panel; here, the curved bodies of the Christ Child and the Virgin compliment the panel's circular form.Painted around 1500, this tondo has been attributed to the so-called “Pseudo Granacci,” a name given by art historians to an anonymous Florentine painter whose works used to be confused with those of Franceso Granacci (1469-1543). While it shows some similarities to that artist's works there are also notable differences: the Christ Child, for instance, is more robust and the landscape sparser than the painter's more characteristic tondi, such as those at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, or the Galleria Palatina in Florence. The attribution therefore remains open.
provenance
Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1897 catalogue: no. 72, as Botticelli]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
date
ca. 1500 (Renaissance)
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Painting & Drawing
tondi
imageCount
1
pageCount
1
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
86.7
height
86.4
depth
1.3
dimensionsRaw
Painted surface H: 34 1/8 x W: 34 x Approx. D: 1/2 in. (86.7 x 86.4 x 1.3 cm)
Source extras
med
tempera (?) on wood panel
creator_ids
3040
collection_ids
REN
exhibition_ids
none
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
3ef629fcff90b44f