Christmas in Splendid Gothic Painting in the NG Prague

This seminar explores the Christmas theme in the rare medieval art collection of the National Gallery of Prague. Womanhood, motherhood, and fertility are documented in images of breastfeeding Madonnas and in scenes from the Nativity and the Visitation. Balancing the emphasis on the female caretaking role, we will also look at representations of St. Joseph tending to the newborn Christ child in the museum’s collection.

The National Gallery in Prague houses an extraordinary and rare collection of fourteenth and fifteenth-century art that has no parallel north of the Alps. The collection of Medieval Art contains representations of the pregnant Virgin Mary awaiting the birth of Jesus Christ and tender Nativity scenes on an altarpiece designed for the royal coronation of 1347.

Using works from the collection, we will also explore Christmas liturgical practices and how they influence our celebration of Christmas today and learn about the transcendental function of altarpieces, achieved by masterly painting technique and the use of gold, jewels, and precious stones applied on panel paintings.

Participants will also discover surprising representations of St. Joseph preparing a bath for a newborn baby and cooking porridge and also see the Three Kings rewarded with Christ’s diapers in exchange for gold and myrrh in a fifteenth-century altarpiece.

Led by an expert on Medieval and early Renaissance painting, Dr. Katerina Prusova, this interactive seminar will present the Christmas theme in Bohemian panel painting of the Middle Ages. Participants will come away with an understanding of the Christian cult of womanhood and motherhood as well as familiarity with rare and precious representations of the Christmas story in the Middle Ages.