1 December: Piero della Francesca's restored Nativity

To start off our virtual Advent Calendar, it seemed only right to celebrate the recently completed restoration of Piero della Francesca’s Nativity Scene, made in the 1480s, at the National Gallery in London.

The painting is back on display in the gallery after a 15-month restoration by conservationists. And with it, a mystery has been resolved: the painting was not unfinished by Piero, as historians have long believed, but in fact it had been damaged by previous restoration.

As explained in the gallery description, “[the painting] is striking in its simplicity: Piero used mainly sandy brown and blue to unite the landscape and the groups of figures. This is only interrupted by the bright pink of Joseph’s robes and the green of trees and grasses that dot the largely bare earth and rocky mountainsides.”

“As with the majority of Piero’s paintings… the image has no obvious geometry. Instead, the ramshackle and ruined brick lean-to that represents the stable in which Christ was born is at an awkward angle. Its slightly skewed position, combined with the setting of the holy figures on top of an exposed rocky outcrop, emphasises their precarious circumstances and their poverty. Piero brings the extraordinary circumstances of the birth of Christ directly into his own world by including a fortified town just like Sansepolcro in the valley below.”

The Virgin Mary is rendered particularly beautifully: “Within this somewhat desolate and windblown setting, the Virgin Mary’s beauty and serenity as she meditates upon her son is all the more arresting. Her flawless pale complexion and fair hair – covered with a delicate, gauzy veil – follow Renaissance ideals of beauty. Humbly kneeling before him, she has offered her deep blue mantle – all she has – to protect his naked skin from the earth. She is depicted as both simple and majestic, her hair and neckline adorned with pearls. This image of the Virgin is inspired by the miraculous vision of Saint Bridget of Sweden, whose account of her experience was widely read in the fifteenth century and was popular in fifteenth-century paintings.”

Read more about the painting here - and we also highly recommend using the zoom function, if you aren’t able to visit in person!

Check out this behind-the-scenes video at the National Gallery’s conservation studios, too!