Medium Oil on panel Year 1520 | ||
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Dimensions 140.7 cm × 130 cm (55.4 in × 51 in) Similar Nativity, The Battle of Alexande, Madonna of Chancell, Christ taking Leave of, Susanna and the Elders | ||
The Nativity of the Virgin is a painting by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Altdorfer, dating to c. 1520, which is currently housed in the Alte Pinakothek of Munich, Germany.
Description
The work uses a scenic composition typical of the Danube school of the time. The subject, the birth of Mary, is shown in a secondary location of the lower part of the painting. It includes St. Anne's bed, the midwives with the daughter and St. Joachim riding a stair with something in his hand.
The predominant part of the work is the church background, where angels fly to form a large circle: in the middle is a young angel with a thurible for the incense.
The edifice, symbolizing the analogy between Mary and the Catholic church (a subject later abolished by the Protestant Reformation), is organized in a complicated and original fashion: the ambulatory and the column galleries are Romanesque, the ogival windows are Gothic, the vaults and the shell-shaped niches are in Renaissance style. This attention to architectural elements was typical of Altdorfer's work in the period he spent at the court of Maximilian I.