The Art Institute of Chicago, 2016
Purchase from the Art Institute Museum Shop. Available to booksellers from Yale University Press.
This luxurious catalogue is the first to study the crèche in the context of art and music history. Essays explore the Neapolitan crèche tradition and examine the design of Chicago’s example with reference to other important crèches in Europe and the United States. Entries on individual figures identify the characters and types they represent, as well as their social and historical meaning and religious significance.
Other entries address groups of figures, animals, and cultural themes present in the crèche. Together the essays and entries highlight the astonishing realism and potent symbolism of these figures, which range from heavenly angels and the Holy Family around the manger to street vendors and revelers feasting, drinking, and dancing in a tavern.
Sylvain Bellenger and Carmine Romano
With an essay by Jesse Rosenberg and a preface by Riccardo Muti
176 pages, 9 1/2 x 12 in.
242 color ills.
Hardcover $40.00 ($36.00 members)
ISBN: 978-0-300-22235-7
