Nativity

Battista’s small-scale painting, with simple formal structure, symmetrical arrangement of people and classical figure models, is executed with great precision – strict in harmony and composition, as was customary in the High Renaissance. In the centre lies the Christ-child on a white cloth, with Mary and Joseph on the right and two shepherds on the left. Above this scene of adoration hovers God the Father in a glowing cloud of light. It was through Raphael (1483–1520), that Battista became familiar with the smooth brushwork and the graceful figure of the Madonna. The earthy colour palette and the soft contours of the figures show his brother’s influence. Exaggerated gestures, long strides, the typical bearded faces and the bowed, kneeling figures are all characteristic of the artist’s early period. The distant fantasy landscapes are usually isolated, hastily sketched without only little elaborated. He rather lacks the atmospheric and colour qualities of his brother Dosso, who followed more the Venetian style of Giorgione (1477/78–1510) and Titian (1488/90–1576), not the Roman style, like Battista. Dosso was a friend of Titian’s, and travelled to Mantua with him in 1519. Although Battista learned much from Raphael, he never achieved the latter’s skill.
Stylistically comparable works can be found in Bergamo, Pinacoteca dell’Accademia Carrara in Rome, Museo Galleria di Villa Borghese and Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice. Format, motif, elaboration and comparative examples suggest the date of the painting as around 1520.
Small-scale altar-pieces such as the picture in the Residenzgalerie Salzburg served for private silent worship and were also taken on journeys.

HABERSATTER Thomas: Dossi Battista, in reality Battista de Luteri, Nativity, in: DUCKE Astrid, HABERSATTER Thomas, OEHRING Erika: Masterworks. Residenzgalerie Salzburg. Salzburg 2015, p. 12