The Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century.

Magi bearing gifts, 4th-century sarcophagus, Rome

4th-century sarcophagus, Milan; one of the earliest Nativity images

Byzantine and Orthodox tradition

Mosaic in Byzantine style, Palermo, 1150

Early Medieval Western images

Gothic

13th-century French glass at Canterbury Cathedral with the full story of the Magi and typologically related scenes.

Pulpit Relief from the Pisa Baptistry by Nicola Pisano, 1260, is based in style on the reliefs of Roman sarcophagi.

Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi

Piero della Francesca (unfinished)

Domenico Ghirlandaio, with classical ruins

Botticelli; his patrons, the Medici family, are depicted as the Magi and their retinue.

This complex Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci was never completed.

The Doni Tondo represents the Holy Family resting on the way to Egypt; Michelangelo.

The meeting of the Infant Christ and John the Baptist was a popular subject of Raphael.

Lorenzo Lotto, Giorgione, Mantegna

Pieter Brueghel the Elder

Mannerism

El Greco, Baroque Adoration of the Shepherds lit by the Christ Child

Adoration of the Magi, Rubens, 1634

Nativity by Gustave Doré 1891

Nativity, Paul Gauguin, 1896, with a Tahitan setting

Nativity, after 1800

Late 19th-century stained glass of The Adoration of the Shepherds and the Magi, Cologne Cathedral.

The Magi before Herod, French 15th-century stained glass

Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, the Magi presenting their gifts (mosaic detail), late 6th century, wearing Persian dress, and Phrygian cap