Adoration of the Christ Child by Botticelli Postcard

The Adoration of the Christ Child by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1500, is a tempera painting on wood panel depicting the Holy Family in the manger at Bethlehem during the birth of Christ. The picture is on a round panel known as a tondo, a format used in some religious icon painting in the Renaissance. Botticelli’s clean tempera technique strikes clear notes of light and dark in the tones of figures, robes and landscape, and reflects the rise of the study of classical antiquity in the Renaissance era. Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) was a Florentine painter of the of the early Italian Renaissance who apprenticed under the master Filippo Lippi. With strong Gothic influences, the mature work of Botticelli reflected a study of antique classical sculpture and was noted for its linear grace and rhythm, flattened relief-like forms with strong contours, and subtle colouring. The complexity of meanings in Botticelli’s compositions, from sources drawn from classical antiquity, mythology and philosophy, enthraled scholars for centuries.