Mystical Nativity (Filippo Lippi)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Fra_Filippo_Lippi_-_The_Adoration_in_the_Forest_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/290px-Fra_Filippo_Lippi_-_The_Adoration_in_the_Forest_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
The Mystical Nativity or Adoration in the Forest was painted by Fra Filippo Lippi (c. 1406 – 1469) around 1459 as the altarpiece for the Magi Chapel in the new Palazzo Medici in Florence.[1] It is now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin,[2] with a copy by another artist now hanging in the chapel.[3] It is a highly individual depiction of the familiar scene of the Nativity of Jesus in art, placed in a mountainous forest setting, with debris from woodcutting all around, rather than the familiar stable in Bethlehem, and with the usual figures and animals around the mother and child replaced by others.[4]
The painting is in oil on a poplar panel, and the painted surface measures 127 x 116 cm, with the panel being 129.5 x 118.5 cm.[5] It is not to be confused with The Mystical Nativity by Sandro Botticelli, now in London.
Description
The moment shown is known as the Adoration of the Child in art, as the almost naked baby Jesus is placed on the ground, and "adored" by his mother Mary. The lower part of his body is covered by a gauzy and transparent cloth. They are on a patch of ground with grass, several types of flower in bloom, but also some of the debris of forestry that appears throughout the forest background. To the left, the infant John the Baptist stands, wearing his attribute of a camelskin coat under a red robe. He carries a small cross on a long staff, and holds a banderole inscribed Ecce Agnus Dei ("Behold the Lamb of God"). However, he is shown as perhaps five or six years old, a much bigger age difference with the newborn Jesus than the church taught.[6]
Above John the Baptist is the praying figure of Saint
The scene is set on a steep slope in a rather dark forest, mostly consisting of pine trees, which runs right to the top of the composition, so that no sky can be seen. Stumps, discarded pieces of tree and other evidence of woodcutting is all around,
Context
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/Panorama_del_Convento_di_Camaldoli.jpg/220px-Panorama_del_Convento_di_Camaldoli.jpg)
Having a "portable altar", and so a private chapel, in a family city house was at this time a rather rare privilege; the Medici's right to do so had been granted in a papal bull of Pope Martin V in 1422. Only nine Florentine families were given the right in this period, and most of the identifiable altarpieces for such chapels featured several saints associated with the family, often the namesakes of members.[12]
By 1563 the lack of the normal elements of a Nativity scene would be partly redressed by the completion of the famous frescos of the Procession of the Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli that cover most of the other walls of the Magi Chapel, and give it its name. These show the large and lively processions of the three Biblical Magi and their crowded trains making their way to Bethlehem, and include a number of portraits of the Medici family.[13]
Romuald was the founder of the Camoldolite order, named after their remote base at
Woodcutting was a part of daily life for the community there, and timber for Florentine builders a major source of income.[15] Many of the monks lived as hermits in small huts in forest clearings where they grew crops on their own plots. The cut down trees also refer to the words of John the Baptist, given in the Gospel of Matthew 3:10:[16]
- And now also the axe is laid
- unto the root of the trees:
- therefore every tree which
- bringeth not forth good fruit is
- hewn down, and cast into the fire. (Authorized Version)
Because of this passage, an axe was an attribute of John the Baptist in art, though by this period it was rare in Western art.
John the Baptist was the patron saint of Florence and of the Camaldoli monastery. Lucrezia Tornabuoni Medici had a particular devotion to him, demonstrated by her poetry.[19] There has been much discussion as to who influenced the unusual features of the painting, apart from Lippi himself. Although there is surviving correspondence showing that Piero de' Medici took a considerable interest in the Gozzoli frescos, making his wishes prevail, there is nothing comparable for the altarpiece, and it has been argued that his wife Lucrezia was more significant for that.[20]
Another candidate is the
-
The copy in the Magi Chapel of the Palazzo Medici, flanked by parts of Gozzoli's frescos
-
The Annalena Nativity by Lippi, c. 1455,Uffizi Gallery
-
Lippi and workshop, fresco in Prato Cathedral, John the Baptist Bids Farewell to his Family
History
The painting was created at the height of the power of the
The Englishman Edward Solly, whose large fortune came appropriately from trading timber, bought the painting in 1814, during the upheavals of the Napoleonic wars, and it was acquired for the Berlin collection in 1821, as part of a large sale of his collection.[26] It became famous and popular with the public on display in Berlin over the next century, and in 1940 was moved with other important works to safe storage in a Berlin bunker.[27] In 1945 this was not felt safe enough, and with thousands of other artworks and other valuables it was moved to a potassium mine.[28]
The US Army took the mine in the same year. At the end of the war the Americans intended, like the Russians, to permanently seize artworks owned by the German government, and over strong protests from the "
See also
- The Mystical Nativity by Sandro Botticelli, 1500–01
Notes
- ^ Solum; the dating varies by a year or two between sources
- ^ "Die Anbetung im Walde". Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums). Retrieved 2024-04-23.
- ^ Holmes, 178. The copy is of about 1470, attributed to a minor artist known as the "Pseudo-Pier Francesco Fiorentino"
- ^ Hartt, 219–220
- ^ Berlin, 44
- ^ Hartt, 219–220; Solum
- ^ This last figure is still sometimes identified as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, as by Holmes, 178, but is usually now seen as Romuald, as by Hartt, 220, Verdon and Rossi, 56, and Solum.
- ^ Hartt, 219
- ^ Solum – over 50 cut trees have been counted in the painting
- ^ Hartt, 220; Holmes, 180
- ^ Private, 21:00
- ^ Solum
- ^ Hartt, 298–299
- ^ Verdon and Rossi, 59; Hartt, 220
- ^ Hartt, 220; Private, 22:20
- ^ Hartt, 220; Solum
- ^ Schiller, I, 125 and note 21
- ^ Holmes, 180–182
- ^ Solum
- ^ Solum
- ^ Hartt, 219
- ^ Hartt, 219
- ^ Vasari, 136
- ^ Private, 31:00
- ^ Private, 30:20
- ^ Private, 35:00; Berlin, 44
- ^ Private, 39:10
- ^ Private, 40:40
- ^ Private, 41:20
- ^ Private, 44:50
References
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- "Berlin": The Complete Catalogue of the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, 1986, Harry N. Abrams, ISBN 0810909723
- ISBN 0500235104
- Holmes, Megan, Fra Filippo Lippi the Carmelite Painter, 1999, Yale University Press, ISBN 0300081049, 9780300081046, google books
- "Private", The Private Life of a Christmas Masterpiece (2010), Fulmar Television & Film tv programme for the BBC, with Luke Syson, Sarah Dunant, Rachel Campbell-Johnston and others (45 minutes)
- ISBN 0853312702
- Solum, Stefanie, Women, Patronage, and Salvation in Renaissance Florence: Lucrezia Tornabuoni and the Chapel of the Medici Palace, 2017, Routledge, ISBN 1351536494, 9781351536493, google books
- Vasari, selected & ed. George Bull, Artists of the Renaissance, Penguin 1965 (page nos from BCA edn, 1979)
- Verdon, Timothy, Rossi, Filippo, Mary in Western Art, 2005, Hudson Hills, ISBN 097129819X, 9780971298194, google books