A Picture Stolen by Order of a King

"LA NOTTE"--"THE HOLY NIGHT." CORREGGIO, 1494-1534.

This picture is perhaps the best known of all the works of Correggio. There is still in existence the written agreement, dated October 10th, 1522, in which Alberto Pratonero, of Reggio, promised to pay 108 lires to Antonio da Corregio, for a work representing the Nativity of Christ, adding that "the whole was to be done exceeding well." It was not finished until 1530, when it was placed in the Church of San Prospero. The Lords of Modena had an intense desire to possess this picture, and, not being successful by fair means, they came at night and carried it off, by order of Francisco I. A copy of it was afterward presented to the church. This, however, made but poor amends for the loss of the original. The collection of the Duke of Modena was afterward purchased in 1746, by Augustus III. of Saxony, whose entire accumulations, now in Dresden, form one of the finest galleries in Europe. The subject of "The Nativity" is distinguishable by the accessories. There should always be in representations of the birth of Christ a stable or a cavern, an ox, an ass, angels, shepherds, Joseph, and oftentimes other figures,--as a shepherdess bringing a pair of turtle-doves, as a poor man's thank-offering for a child.

The accessories have all their legendary significance; the stable because "there was no room for them in the inn;" the ox is said to typify the Hebrew, and the ass, the Gentile, world; the angels announced the Nativity, and the adoration of the shepherds followed it. Correggio, in his Nativity, carries out also the legend that the cave was filled with a dazzling and supernatural light, which emanated from the Holy Infant. "La Notte" is a true type of the Nativity as it was conceived in the fourteenth century. Earlier pictures of the scene present the subject differently.

In the distant background of "La Notte" the dawn is breaking, betokening that "the Day Spring from on high hath visited us."