Nativity & Childhood
The Annunciation, the birth at Bethlehem, the Magi and the flight into Egypt — the beginning of the story, as the great painters imagined it.
10 moments in this segment.
- — The Adoration of the Magi. The wise men bring gold, frankincense and myrrh, in Gentile da Fabriano's gilded Gothic altarpiece. (Gentile da Fabriano, 1423)
- — The Annunciation. The angel Gabriel tells Mary she will bear the Son of God — here in Fra Angelico's serene fresco at San Marco, Florence. (Fra Angelico, c. 1440)
- — Leonardo's Annunciation. The young Leonardo da Vinci painted the Annunciation in a Tuscan garden, now in the Uffizi. (Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1472)
- — Botticelli's Adoration. Botticelli set the Magi among portraits of the Medici in this Florentine Adoration. (Sandro Botticelli, c. 1476)
- — The Nativity. The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, in Geertgen tot Sint Jans's luminous night scene lit only by the Christ child. (Geertgen tot Sint Jans, c. 1490)
- — Christ among the Doctors. The twelve-year-old Jesus astonishes the teachers in the Temple, in Dürer's crowded panel. (Albrecht Dürer, 1506)
- — The Visitation. Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, in Pontormo's radiant Mannerist panel. (Jacopo Pontormo, c. 1529)
- — The Massacre of the Innocents. Herod orders the killing of Bethlehem's infants, in Bruegel's chilling snowbound scene. (Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1567)
- — The Flight into Egypt. Warned in a dream, the Holy Family flees Herod, in Caravaggio's tender Rest on the Flight into Egypt. (Caravaggio, c. 1597)
- — The Adoration of the Shepherds. Shepherds summoned by angels come to worship the newborn Christ, in Georges de La Tour's candlelit masterpiece. (Georges de La Tour, c. 1644)
