The Mystical Nativity [SEP] creator
The Mystical Nativity
The Mystical Nativity is a painting dated by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, in the National Gallery in London. Botticelli built up the image using oil on canvas. It is his only signed work and has an unusual iconography for a painting of the Nativity.
The Greek inscription at the top translates as: 'This picture, at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, I, Alessandro, in the half-time after the time, painted, according to the
down on to the surface, following the surface irregularities of the canvas – a glitter, intricate, it would have helped the jewel like quality of the painting – it would have drawn the eye upwards from the Nativity into Heaven. Faith, hope and charity, [the angels clothed in] white, green and red – but the copper based green pigment has discoloured with time, to bronze. Originally it would have been vibrant." 
Fate of the painting.
Botticelli died in 1510. The "Mystical Nativity