# The Birth of the Virgin \(detail\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [CARNEVALE, Fra]() - Date: 1451-1500 - Technique: Tempera and oil on wood ## Commentary It is remarkable that the mother of the child - rather young for Saint Anne - is depicted lying in bed nude. Virtually every fifteenth-century scene of the Birth of the Virgin shows Anne reclining in bed, decorously dressed to receive visitors. However, the three maids attending Saint Anne - unlike the woman seated alongside her - are clothed <I>all'antica<I/>. This implies that the birth has been imagined as a past event refracted through contemporary life. ## Related artworks - [A Woman and a Kneeling Monk]() - [Allegorical scene]() - [Heroic Figure against an Architectural Backdrop]() - [Madonna and Child]() - [Portrait of a Man]() - [St Francis]() - [St John the Baptist]() - [St Peter]() - [Study of David and Two Figures]() - [The Annunciation \(detail\)]() - [The Annunciation]() - [The Annunciation]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()