The Nativity

No fewer than twelve figures--including the Christ child--and eight farmyard animals inhabit Boucher's luminous Nativity. Inspired by the pastorals of the Italian artist Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, this autonomous drawing is executed in a complex and layered mixed-media technique. Boucher first laid out the composition in a black chalk underdrawing and lightly washed the cream paper in red. He then delineated his cast of characters in pen and brown ink with very few revisions, emphasized certain details in the foreground with more insistent pen work, and finally added white chalk highlights to the lantern and the central group. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection"