Away in a manger

IMAGINING the Divine: The Holy Family in Art is an exhibition, centred around The Nativity, currently running in the National Gallery of Ireland.

Anne Hodge, curator of prints and drawings, chose the works in the show. “I thought it would be nice, for Christmas, to have some of the really beautiful religious pictures on show for the public,” she says. “The National Gallery of Ireland, like many museums founded in the 19th century, has a large proportion of religious work in its collection.

“My idea was to choose some of the really beautiful work, paintings, drawings and even sculpture that showed the early life of Christ, the nativity, and the various events around Christ’s early life, and put them on display.”