Birth of Christ

Pale as a corpse, the child looks seriously out of the picture. Baldung drastically intensifies the linkage of Incarnation and self-sacrifice by having angels support the new-born baby, which otherwise is only customary in the angel pietà, where the dead Christ is raised from the tomb by an angel. In addition to the pronounced facial expressions of the figures here — from gentle smiles to almost grim looks —the rendering of the materials is remarkable: shiny pearls, fine curls, delicate feathers, or warmly billowing velvet testify to Baldung’s gift for depicting surfaces.