Belén Museo de Historia de Madrid

The Museo de Historia de Madrid is displaying an eighteenth-century Neapolitan crèche, with more than fifty articulated figures that combine scenes of everyday life in Naples with the story of the Nativity.

The Museo de Historia de Madrid houses an eighteenth-century Neapolitan crèche made up of more than fifty articulated figures that combine scenes of everyday life in Naples with the story of the birth of Jesus. The maker is unknown, although the quality of the carving and the expressiveness of the characters point to artists of great skill.

Most of the figures are carved in wood or modelled in fired clay, and are mounted on a wire frame covered in tow that allows the limbs and head to be moved. The accessories and very carefully applied polychromy reflect the variety of social classes and trades: peasants, bourgeois, shepherds, street vendors, musicians and the retinue of the Three Kings, with its luxurious oriental procession.

The Nativity scene rises above classical ruins, and in the upper part small angels, or putti, tumble down in cascades. The visit allows you to linger over the detail of each group and over a tradition of crèches that reached Spain in the eighteenth century.