Nativity with Saints John the Baptist and Jerome (Nativity of the Rabbits)

Two rabbits sit in the foreground of this Nativity, and the Christ Child, lying on the folds of his mother's blue mantle, twists round to look at them. Everything in the picture gravitates around that small movement, and it gave the altarpiece its Veronese nickname, the Nativity of the Rabbits. Saint John the Baptist and Saint Jerome stand in attendance.

Girolamo painted it as a young man, for the church of Santa Maria in Organo in Verona. The museum sees his training in Mantegna's manner in the very high horizon and the deep, detailed landscape, though his figures are more familiar and natural than those of the famous Paduan. Above all it points to the plants, rendered with almost scientific precision, from a humble plantain at the lower left to the ferns on the rocks and, behind, a pomegranate tree with its red fruit.