After three years of painstaking work, Piero della Francesca’s famous Nativity, from the early 1480s, has returned to public display in the National Gallery in London just in time for Christmas. After an uncommonly difficult restoration, carried out by the Gallery’s own Conservation Department, the world-renowned piece made its long-awaited return to view on 1 December.
Previously understood to have been part of an altarpiece, a new theory of teleology now reigns supreme and it is believed to have been created as a domestic painting instead. Perhaps even, some now argue, it was painted by Piero to adorn the walls of the principal bed-chamber in his own family’s palazzo.
