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Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, 1308–11
In the middle Mary lies in a cave under a wooden roof, the child in the manger behind her, ox and ass looking in. To either side stands a prophet with a scroll, as if the two had been waiting there for centuries.
The panel belonged to the Maestà, the huge double-sided altarpiece that Duccio painted for Siena Cathedral and that was carried there in procession in 1311. It was sawn apart in the eighteenth century; this piece comes from the base of the front. Isaiah's scroll carries his sentence about the virgin who shall conceive (Isaiah 7:14).
Isaiah holds his scroll towards the scene it speaks of.
At the bottom two midwives bathe the newborn, a scene from the apocryphal gospels, not from Luke.
