Die Geburt Christi in der bildenden Kunst bis zur Renaissance: im Anschluss an Elfenbeinwerke des Grossherzoglichen Museums zu Darmstadt
An 1894 German art-historical study by Ferdinand Noack, published in Heidelberg, tracing how the Nativity of Christ was depicted in visual art up to the Renaissance, based on ivory carvings in the Grand Ducal Museum at Darmstadt. The pictures are photographs of carved ivory plaques and line drawings of manuscript-style Nativity scenes, showing the Virgin reclining, the infant in a manger, shepherds, and midwives. A designer could take from them the compact narrative arrangement of multiple episodes within a single rectangular panel, a useful reference for medieval ivory relief composition.
