Mystical Nativity (Filippo Lippi)

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.

He carries a small cross on a long staff, and holds a banderole inscribed Ecce Agnus Dei ("Behold the Lamb of God").

[6] Above John the Baptist is the praying figure of Saint Romuald (c.951 – c. 1025/27), founder of the Camaldolese order of monks, to which the Medici family, the patrons of the painting had connections.

John's figure almost reaches the left edge of the painted surface, but on the right of the composition there is a generous slice of background, interrupted only by Mary's robe.

[8] 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.

A small goldfinch is perched on a stump at the front of the picture-space, near Jesus's foot; a common symbol in art for the Passion of Christ in the future.

[11] 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.

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.

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.

This was painted for Lucrezia Tornabuoni Medici's "cell" (one of the small single-story houses with its own plot) in the Camaldoli monastery, the treatment no doubt specified by her; it is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

On arrival they were hung in the basement of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, but the collection was not opened to the public, as the seizure had become controversial, with criticism in the press and Congress.