A young woman and an older man kneel to either side of a nude baby outside of a barn-like structure in this vertical painting.

The Nativity

Lorenzo Lotto (Italian, 1480–1557)

Date: 1523
Medium: oil on panel
Size: 18 × 14¼ in (46 × 35.9 cm)
Museum: National Gallery of Art, Washington, accession 1939.1.288. See the museum’s record
Credit: Samuel H. Kress Collection

Public domain image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art (Open Access, CC0).

Palette

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Hang it

Pick the furniture and a print size to see it to scale on your wall.

Where Print size

Print: 18 × 24 in, filling the paper (trims 3.8 % of the picture)
Center: 58 in (147 cm) above the stair line

18 × 24 in portrait print (46 × 61 cm), centered 58 in above the stair line. Drawn to scale on a 12 × 8 ft wall.

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Print it

Standard paper sizes that keep this painting’s proportions, the frames that fit them, and how sharp each one prints.

Paper	Filling the paper	Printed whole	Frame	Frame with a 2 in mat	Frame with a 3 in mat	Sharpness
8 × 10 in	trims 2.5 %	7¾ × 10 in	8 × 10 in ready-made	12 × 14 in custom	14 × 16 in custom	1175 dpi, crisp up close
11 × 14 in	trims 0.7 %	11 × 14 in	11 × 14 in ready-made	15 × 18 in custom	17 × 20 in custom	855 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 16 in	trims 3.8 %	12 × 15½ in	12 × 16 in ready-made	16 × 20 in ready-made	18 × 22 in custom	770 dpi, crisp up close
16 × 20 in	trims 2.5 %	15½ × 20 in	16 × 20 in ready-made	20 × 24 in ready-made	22 × 26 in custom	587 dpi, crisp up close
18 × 24 in	trims 3.8 %	18 × 23 in	18 × 24 in ready-made	22 × 28 in ready-made	24 × 30 in ready-made	513 dpi, crisp up close
30 × 40 in	trims 3.8 %	30 × 38½ in	30 × 40 in ready-made	34 × 44 in custom	36 × 46 in custom	308 dpi, crisp up close
36 × 48 in	trims 3.8 %	36 × 46¼ in	36 × 48 in ready-made	40 × 52 in custom	42 × 54 in custom	256 dpi, crisp from a step back

Sharpness is worked out from the largest file the museum offers. Above 300 dpi a print holds up at arm’s length; 150 dpi is plenty for a picture seen from across a sofa.

Download

Free for any use, including commercial: this image is public domain (CC0).

Thumbnail (WebP) 428 × 560 px from Room Paintings
Web image 644 × 843 px from National Gallery of Art
Print file 1,527 × 2,000 px from National Gallery of Art
Original file 9,407 × 12,320 px from National Gallery of Art
The museum’s record of this painting National Gallery of Art

Public domain image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art (Open Access, CC0). You may print, share, change and sell it without asking. Read what that means on our image license page, and how to get a good result in how to print a public-domain painting.