Festive Beasts: Our Favourite Animals In Depictions of the Nativity

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts’ current, ‘Miss Clara and the Celebrity Beast in Art’, is devoted to the lives and legacies of famous animals in Europe from 1500-1860. The eponymous rhinoceros arrived in mainland Europe in 1741 – the first rhino there since 1579 – from where she was then transported and displayed in cities across the continent, eventually dying in London in 1758. This exhibition is an opportunity to remember the lives – and suffering – of famous animals in European history. Yet with Christmas around the corner, this animal-centered approach has inspired us to consider paintings of the Nativity which feature particularly characterful – and humourous – animals. Here we have chosen a selection which bring a smile to our faces.

Would it really be a Nativity without an ox and donkey? The presence of these two animals in most nativity scenes remind viewers of the impoverished circumstances into which Christ was born. Yet they also offer a symbolic reminder that, according to Christian belief, all life (both non-human and human) worshipped the new born Christ. In Andrea Previtali’s Nativity, the ox and donkey are particularly effective in this sense. In fact, as they bend down over Christ’s manger, both animals cast a golden breath over the Child. Since they are much closer to Christ than the Virgin Mary or Saint Joseph, their illuminated breath seems to function as a tender – and unconventional – spotlight. Similarly, the ox and donkey in Giotto’s Nativity fresco in Assisi (painted between 1311-1320) simply can’t seem to get enough of the spectacle: as the Virgin holds her Child up, the two animals gaze closely at Him (the donkey even seems to smile slightly).

In other depictions, both donkey and ox appear rather indifferent to Christ’s birth. In Hieronymus Bosch’s The Adoration of the Magi (c. 1475), an ox sits at the stable’s entrance to the left of the painting, with its head turned away from the Nativity scene. The donkey is even less interested: only its rear end can be seen through the stable doorway! In a 17th-century Ethiopian manuscript, an ox and donkey – along with a few somewhat comically disorientated sheep – are included on either side of Christ looking similarly unimpressed.

Along with the traditional ox, donkey and shepherd’s flock of sheep, other animals can also feature in various Nativity scenes. Dogs appear fairly frequently: in Jan Gossaert’s The Adoration of the Kings (1510-1515), two fashionable lapdogs are depicted in the foreground; one plays with a bone, the other looks on towards the Holy scene. These dogs may have been included to give a sense of contemporaneity to this religious moment, to help viewers at the time relate more easily to the painting’s subject-matter, or perhaps as symbols of faithfulness.

Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi (painted in 1423) presents a remarkable range of animals. Alongside the traditional ox, donkey, sheep (and a couple of dogs for good measure), the chaotic scene includes a camel, cheetah (or possibly leopard), hawks and monkeys. The inclusion of animals which were not native to Europe helped Gentile da Fabriano to emphasise the three wise men’s journey from the Far East, but also to impress viewers with its exoticism and visual richness. This would have reflected very well on the painting’s patron, the rich Florentine banker Palla Strozzi, since it implied his connections to foreign lands (many rich citizens at the time had a collection of exotic animals). We also see a variety of animals 150 years later in Venetian artist Paolo Veronese’s Adoration of the Magi (1573), in which a camel bucks among the crowd (alongside the usual suspects of the ox and donkey, sheep, horses and two faithful dogs). Again, the presence of the three Kings justifies the inclusion of ‘exotic’ animals.

Finally, a 17th-century nativity scene made in Mexico by an anonymous artist presents a Nativity which not only includes a particularly endearing donkey and ox – alongside a horse, birds (both in the frame and the main image) and a charming sheep – but it is in itself made from an animal product. The artist has used a hybrid technique that combines oil and tempera painting on mother-of-pearl inlay, the latter of which comes from the inner shell layer of some molluscs. This painstaking technique, called enconchado, was heavily influenced by South East Asian artistic practices; the Spanish rule in the Philippines meant that artists in Mexico had access to many South East Asian products. By contrast, the presence of the donkey and ox reinforces a link between the New World and Europe: indeed, the artist of this enconchado most likely used Flemish prints (brought over from Counter-Reformation Europe) as a starting point.

Miss Clara and the Celebrity Beast in Art will be running at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts from 12 Nov 2021 until 27 Feb 2022. Find out more here.