Mystical Nativity (Filippo Lippi)

The Mystical Nativity or Adoration in the Forest was painted by Fra Filippo Lippi (c. 1406 – 1469) around 1459 as the altarpiece for the Magi Chapel in the new Palazzo Medici in Florence. It is now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, with a copy by another artist now hanging in the chapel. It is a highly individual depiction of the familiar scene of the Nativity of Jesus in art, placed in a mountainous forest setting, with debris from woodcutting all around, rather than the familiar stable in Bethlehem, and with the usual figures and animals around the mother and child replaced by others.

The painting is in oil on a poplar panel, and the painted surface measures 127 x 116 cm, with the panel being 129.5 x 118.5 cm. It is not to be confused with The Mystical Nativity by Sandro Botticelli, now in London.

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