Neapolitan nativity scenes are very different from those seen in churches due to the importance of secular settings. They are not limited to staging the child Jesus surrounded by the holy family. Still, they managed to reproduce the daily life of the Neapolitans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The elegance of the figuration and the fineness of the execution of these santons also reveals the quality of the know-how of the Neapolitan artisans. The markets, hotels, dances, itinerant vendors, beggars, taverns, various trades, guarding herds, the royal procession and all that was within reach of everyday life or fantasy had their place in the Neapolitan crèches...
Category
20th Century European Figurative Sculptures