2-999-792 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Holy Family with an Angel, c1485. The subject of this painting is the celebration of Christ's birth even though the infant Christ, who stands in his mother's lap, seems much older than a newborn. The traditional witnesses of Christ's birth in the Bethlehem stable, the ox and the ass, stand at the left. The procession in the background signals a later event: the arrival of the three wise men from the East to pay homage to the Messiah.