Trittico della natività di Cristo

This Nativity was one of four triptychs made in the 1460s for the Venetian church of Santa Maria della Carità, whose altars had just been finished, and the four were designed together as a single set along a raised choir. The whole group has long carried the name of Giovanni Bellini, then a young painter at the start of a very long career. Scholars still divide the labour between Bellini's own hand and his busy workshop, and the shares given to each have shifted with every cleaning and fresh study. The building the triptychs were made for is now part of the Accademia galleries, where they still hang. The frame's shape echoes the real architecture they were once built into.