# The Nativity [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [DÜRER, Albrecht]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Pen, 313 x 217 mm ## Commentary This is a composition of rare ardor. The warmth of the feeling is guaranteed by the date 1514: the year of the Melancholy and the St Jerome. It is possible that this drawing was conceived as a woodcut; then it would have become a worthy counterpart to those copperplate engravings. In comparison with the 1511 woodcut The Adoration of the Wise Men, we already find here a characteristic simplification of the architecture and a tighter relationship between the figures and the architectural accompaniment. There are simple walls in the background and a calm closed plank ceiling; the effect is one of large-scale tone contrasts. ## Related artworks - [A Young Girl of Cologne and Dürer's Wife]() - [Abduction of a Woman]() - [Abduction of Proserpine on a Unicorn]() - [Adam and Eve]() - [Adam and Eve]() - [Adam and Eve]() - [Adam and Eve]() - [Adam \(detail\)]() - [Adam]() - [Adoration of the Magi \(detail\)]() - [Adoration of the Magi \(detail\)]() - [Adoration of the Magi \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()