The relief includes the unusual subject of Joseph warming the infant Jesus’ clothes at a fire. During the fifteenth century Joseph became increasingly significant and the subject of devotion.
This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
Open Access
As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.
API
Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.
Angels
Virgin Mary
Infant Jesus
Saint Joseph
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
Title:Nativity
Artist:Circle of Antoine Le Moiturier (French, ca. 1425–ca. 1497)
Date:ca. 1450
Geography:Made in Burgundy, France
Culture:French
Medium:Limestone with later paint and gilding
Dimensions:Overall: 17 3/4 x 25 7/8 x 7 1/4 in. (45.1 x 65.7 x 18.4 cm)
Classification:Sculpture-Stone
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1916
Object Number:16.32.158
Emile Molinier ; Georges Hoentschel (French); J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (until 1917)
New York. Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture. "Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 3, 2013–August 11, 2013.
Frankfurt. Liebieghaus Skulpturen Sammlung. "Heilige Nacht: Die Weihnachtsgeschichte und ihre Bilderwelt," October 12, 2016–January 29, 2017.
Collections Georges Hoentschel: Volume 1, Moyen Age et Renaissance. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1908. p. 8, pl. XVI.
Breck, Joseph. Catalogue of Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance Sculpture. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1913. no. 141, pp. 136–38, illus.
Breck, Joseph, and Meyric R. Rogers. The Pierpont Morgan Wing: A Handbook. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1925. p. 153, fig. 88, ill. p. 155.
Breck, Joseph, and Meyric R. Rogers. The Pierpont Morgan Wing: A Handbook. 2nd ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1929. p. 153, fig. 88, ill. p. 155.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Guide to the Collections: Medieval Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1962. fig. 61.
Wixom, William D. "An Enthroned Madonna with the Writing Christ Child." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 57, no. 9 (December 1970). p. 302, n. 43.
Forsyth, William Holmes. "Popular Imagery in a Fifteenth-Century Burgundian Creche." Metropolitan Museum Journal 24 (1989). pp. 117–126, fig. 1–7.
Keller, Peter. Die Wiege des Christuskindes: Ein Haushaltsgerät in Kunst und Kult. Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1998. no. B 10, p. 211, fig. 55.
Wixom, William D. "Late Medieval Sculpture in the Metropolitan: 1400 to 1530." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 64, no. 4 (Spring 2007). p. 22.
Krohn, Deborah L., Ulrich Leben, and Daniëlle O. Kisluk-Grosheide, ed. Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Decorative Arts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York and New Haven: Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, 2013. no. 154, p. 180.
Sadler, Donna L. Stone, Flesh, Spirit: The Entombment of Christ in Late Medieval Burgundy and Champagne. Leiden: Brill, 2015. p. 172, n. 28.
Roller, Stefan, ed. Heilige Nacht: Die Weihnachtsgeschichte und ihre Bilderwelt. Frankfurt am Main: Liebieghaus Skulpturen Sammlung, 2016. no. 42, p. 254.
Roller, Stefan, ed. "Die Weihnachtsgeschichte." In Heilige Nacht: Die Weihnachtsgeschichte und ihre Bilderwelt. Frankfurt am Main: Liebieghaus Skulpturen Sammlung, 2016. pp. 124, 126, fig. 63.
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world, encompassing the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome to the beginning of the Renaissance.
