The Nativity

c. 1508/1519

Juan de Flandes

Artist, Hispano-Flemish, active 1496 - 1519

In the stone ruins of a building, a woman, Mary, kneels with her hands in prayer over a thin-limbed baby lying in front of her in this vertical painting. There is a man behind Mary, to our left, two more in a field to our right, and a winged angel in the upper right corner. They all have pale skin. Mary’s unbound blond hair falls over her shoulders. She wears a celestial-blue dress, and her teal-blue cloak is edged with gold. Her body is angled to our right, and she looks down her straight nose at the baby near her knees. The nude baby has blond curls and a chubby tummy and cheeks. An ox and an ass look down at the baby from behind a stone trough to our right. The man behind Mary wears a forest-green cap and scarf over a tomato-red robe. One hand rests on a staff, and he looks up at the angel in the top right corner. An owl looks down at the man from atop the stone ruins, near the top left corner. Two men recline and about a dozen white sheep lie on low hills in the near distance to our right. One of those men sleeps and the other holds up both hands as he looks into the sky. The angel in the top right corner emerges from a petal-pink and pale yellow halo against a star-strewn blue sky. The angel wears rose pink and has dark pink wings. A scroll held across both arms reads, “GLO” and “INECELSIS DEO.”  

Media Options

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On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G19

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 110.5 x 79.3 cm (43 1/2 x 31 1/4 in.)
    overall (panel): 111.8 x 80.6 cm (44 x 31 3/4 in.)
    framed: 129.8 x 98.7 x 10.7 cm (51 1/8 x 38 7/8 x 4 3/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.23

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Altarpiece of the "capilla mayor (main chapel)", church of San Lázaro, Palencia, commissioned c. 1508, until c. 1945.[1] Arcadio Torres Martín, Palencia, 1950-1951.[2] Acquired c. 1952 by (Frederick Mont, New York);[3] purchased 11 February1953 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] The commission was made by Don Sancho de Castilla. See Jan V.L. Brans, "Juan de Flandes, pintor de la Reina y de Castilla," Clavileño 4, no. 21 (1953): 32 for the state of San Lázaro and the cessation of services there shortly after September 1945.
[2] In 1950 and 1951, Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann saw six panels from the San Lázaro altarpiece--The Annunciation and The Nativity and the four panels now in the Prado--in the house of Sr. Torres Martín in Palencia; this information was given in conversations with Martha Wolff of 3 February 1984 and 24 July 1984.
[3] In 1952 all four panels now in the Gallery (1961.9.22-.25) were with Frederick Mont in New York; see letter of 28 October 1952 from Chandler R. Post to Mont in NGA curatorial files. Mont refers to having bought the pictures in Spain in a letter dated 16 April 1953 to Wilhelm Valentiner (Valentiner Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington: microfilm reel no. 2143; copies in NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2253).

Associated Names

Bibliography

1887

  • Justi, Carl. "Juan de Flandes, ein niederländischer Hofmaler Isabella der Katholischen." Jahrbuch der königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen (Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen) 8 (1887): 167.

1907

  • Winkler, [Friedrich]. "Juan de Flandes." In Thieme-Becker. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950:19(1926):279.

1908

  • Justi, Carl. Miscellaneen aus drei Jahrhunderten spanischen Kunstlebens. 2 vols. Berlin, 1908: 1:324.

1909

  • Mayer, August L. "Studien zur Quattrocento-malerei in Nordwestkastilien." Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 32 (1909): 519.

1913

  • Mayer, August L. Geschichte Malerei der Spanischen. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1913: 1:149.

1917

  • Moreno Villa, José. "Un pintor de la reina católica." Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones 25 (1917): 281.

1932

  • H[ulin] de L[oo], [Georges]. Trésor de l'art flamand du moyen âge au XVIIIe siècle. Mémorial de l'exposition d'art flamand ancien à Anvers. 1930. 2 vols. Paris, 1932: 1:51.

1933

  • Post, Chandler Rathfon. A History of Spanish Painting. 14 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1930-1966: 4, part 1:45, 50.

1950

  • Revilla Vielva, Ramón. "Retablo Mayor de la Santa Iglesia Catedral de Palencia." Publicaciones de la Institución "Tello Téllez de Meneses" no. 5 (1950): 98.

1952

  • Brans, Jan V. L. Isabel la Católica y el arte Hispano-Flamenco. Madrid, 1952: 96-98, pl. 43.

  • Museo del Prado. Catálogo. Madrid (and later editions), 1952: 204.

1953

  • Brans, Jan V. L. "Juan de Flandes, pintor de la Reina y de Castilla." Clavileño 4, no. 21 (1953): 29, 32.

1954

  • Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier. "Las adquisiciones del Museo del Prado en los años 1952 y 1953." Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueologia 27 (1954): 5.

1955

  • Gudiol Ricart, José. Pintura Gótica. In Ars Hispaniae. 22 vols. Madrid, 1955: 9:259-260.

1956

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 108-111, no. 40, repro.

  • Walker, John. "The Nation's Newest Old Masters." The National Geographic Magazine 110, no. 5 (November 1956): 643, color repro. 648.

1957

  • Gudiol, José. "Oeuvres inédites de Jean de Flandres." Miscellanea Prof. Dr. D. Roggen. Antwerp, 1957: 116, 118.

1958

  • Post, Chandler Rathfon. A History of Spanish Painting. 14 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1958: 12, part 2:615, 618, 620, 622-625, figs. 262, 263.

  • Gaya Nuño, Juan Anotonio. La pintura española fuera de España; historia y catàlogo. Madrid, 1958: 148, nos. 761, 762.

1959

  • Brans, Jan V. L. Vlaamse schilders in dienst der Koningen van Spanje. Louvain, 1959: 55.

  • Eisler, Colin. "Juan de Flandes's Saint Michael and Saint Francis." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin n.s. 18 (1959): 130.

  • Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier. The Prado. New York, 1959: 138.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 265, repro.

1960

  • Evans, Grose. Spanish Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Ten in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 14, color repro.

1962

  • Bermejo, Elisa. Juan de Flandes. Madrid, 1962: 28-31, 44, pls. 36-39.

  • Puyvelde, Leo van. La peinture flamande au siècle de Bosch et Breughel. Paris, 1962: 353.

1963

  • Sammlung Heinz Kisters. Aldeutsche und altniederländische Gemälde. Exh. cat. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, 1963: 14-15, under no. 76.

1964

  • Anzelewsky, Fedja. "Der Meister der Lübecker Bibel von 1494." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 27 (1964): 57.

1965

  • Held, Julius S. "The Bearing of the Cross Hitherto Attributed to Juan de Flandes." The Art Quarterly 38 (1965): 31.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 71.

1967

  • Vandevivere, Ignace. Primitifs flamands. Corpus. La cathédrale de Palencia et l'église paroissiale de Cervera de Pisuerga. Brussels, 1967: 44-47.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 62, repro.

1969

  • Osten, Gert von der, and Horst Vey. Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands 1500 to 1600. Harmondsworth, 1969: 142.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 182, 184, repro. 183, 185.

1976

  • Lurie, Ann Tzeutschler. "Birth and Naming of St. John the Baptist Attributed to Juan de Flandes: A Newly Discovered Panel from a Hypothetical Altarpiece." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63 (1976): 127, fig. 21.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 187, fig. 188.

1978

  • Rogers, Millard F., Jr. Spainish Paintings in the Cincinnati Art Museum. Cincinnati, 1978: 12.

1979

  • De Coo, Josef, and Nicole Reynaud. "Origen del retablo de San Juan Bautista atribuido a Juan de Flandes." Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueologia 52 (1979): 140-141, figs. 7, 9.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. Washington, 1984: 138, no. 137, color repro., as A Donor and His Wife.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 211, repro.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1986: 125-133, repro. 127.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 58, no. 43, color repro.

2011

  • Weniger, Matthias. Sittow, Morros, Juan de Flandes: Drei Maler aus dem Norden am Hof Isabellas der Katholischen. Kiel, 2011: 250-253, 254, no. 12.2, fig. 174, 177.

Inscriptions

upper right on angel's banderole: GLOR / ...INECELSIS DEO ED... / ...

Wikidata ID

Q20175104

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