The story of that first Christmas long ago is captured here in all its mystery by some of the world's greatest painters.
The Angel Gabriel comes to Mary bathed in the brilliance of the early Italian Renaissance. Mary travels to Bethlehem through a misty early sixteenth-century landscape; a gentle Joseph, painted by Giorgione, is at her side. Geertgen's young and innocent Mary gazes at her new-born child, whose heavenly radiance illuminates the darkness of the stable and the angels and oxen beside his manger bed.
Guido Reni's simple shepherds gather round; Renaissance kings offer homage. The story ends with a magical pastoral scene as Patel's Holy Family rest on their flight into Egypt amid a peaceful classical landscape that opens out towards the sea.
The beauty of the familiar words of the King James Version of the Bible weaves these and other glorious images together to create a new work of art: a Christmas story that will be treasured by readers young and old.
All the paintings featured here are from the collection in the National Gallery, London.
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