Explores Mantegna's life and milieu, the influence of the revolutionary theoretical ideas of his time, and the theological significance of the subject matter. Also discussed are Mantegna's innovative treatment of the subject, the relationship of the narrative to the viewer, and conservation.

Mantegna's magnificent painting, in the Getty collection, is based on one of Christianity's most beloved stories. The picture is much more than a Christmas-card image though. Dawson Carr explores Mantegna's life and milieu in fifteenth-century Padua and provides a fascinating closer look at the painting itself, considering Mantegna's innovative treatment of the subject, the relationship of the narrative to the viewer, and problems associated with the conservation of its beautiful, but fragile, distemper medium.