Gothic ivory Nativity, from a diptych

An image of Sculpture / Diptych. Nativity. Left wing of a diptych, ivory, carved in relief. Within the frame is a lozenge containing a quatrefoil, in which the scene is represented. The Virgin, reclining on her bed, reaches towards the Child in its manger, breathed on by ox and ass. St Joseph sits on the right behind the bed, and in the distance an angel appears to a shepherd with his flock. In the upper spandrels are two censing angels, and in the lower spandrels two angels support the lozenge. Carved ivory, height, whole, 9.6 cm, width, whole, 7.2, cm, circa 1300-1400. Gothic. Medieval. French.

Terms of use

The low-resolution images published on this Website are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY-NC-ND). For more details: Fitzwilliam Terms of Use

This licence does not include any images of works that are still in copyright. Artistic copyright extends from the life of the artist to 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the artist died.

Download this image

For further information on use of images or to license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who can discuss terms and fees.

Sculpture / Diptych. Nativity. Left wing of a diptych, ivory, carved in relief. Within the frame is a lozenge containing a quatrefoil, in which the scene is represented. The Virgin, reclining on her bed, reaches towards the Child in its manger, breathed on by ox and ass. St Joseph sits on the right behind the bed, and in the distance an angel appears to a shepherd with his flock. In the upper spandrels are two censing angels, and in the lower spandrels two angels support the lozenge. Carved ivory, height, whole, 9.6 cm, width, whole, 7.2, cm, circa 1300-1400. Gothic. Medieval. French.

Image data

Accession Number: M.21-1917
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/16.0
Focal length: 120
Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
Photographer name: Amy Jugg
Image height: 1025 pixels
Image width: 788 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.4 (Windows)
Filesize: 626.24kB
Exposure time: 1/60
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 16/1
Captured: 2013:01:24 15:36:15

Key words

14th Century angelic angels animal animals annunciation annunciation to the shepherds ass Baby Jesus Bible biblical carved censers Christ Christ child Christianity Christmas cows devotional diptych donkeys Fitz_AA French Gothic infant Christ ivory Jesus Joseph lozenge Madonna manger Marian Mary Mary and Joseph Medieval mother mother and child nativity New Testament ox oxen quatrefoil reclining relief religion religious Saint Joseph sculpture sheep shepherds spandrels St Joseph swaddled swaddling Virgin and Child Virgin Mary winged wings Xmas

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025)
            "Gothic ivory Nativity, from a diptych"
            Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-206174 Accessed: 2025-12-05 08:04:48

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-206174
            |title=Gothic ivory Nativity, from a diptych
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-12-05 08:04:48|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/images/media-206174

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa37/m_21_1917_1_201301_amt49_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Nativity"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Gothic ivory Nativity, from a diptych</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>