Stable on the Hill, Christian Wall Art

What is painted

The stable is little more than four posts and a roof of straw and branches, built against low walls of piled stone. Inside, Mary kneels in a blue mantle and white veil, her hands near the Child who lies wrapped in white on the hay of a wooden manger. Joseph stands beside them in a brown cloak, holding a tall staff, one hand on his chest. A lantern hangs from a beam, and a clay jar rests by the wall.

A path of pale earth leads from the front of the picture straight to the stable. Behind it the hills roll away under a sunset sky of gold and dusty blue, and a road winds off into the valley.

This is an impressionist oil-style painting printed edge to edge, with no text on the image.

The birth in Luke's Gospel

Luke 2 explains why the child was born away from home. A decree from Caesar Augustus sent Joseph, who belonged to the house of David, to Bethlehem to be registered with Mary. While they were there, her time came. Luke 2:7 says: “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Luke never uses the word stable. The manger, a feeding trough for animals, is what led Christians to picture a shelter for livestock, and that image has framed the Nativity for centuries.

The center of a three-panel set

This painting is the middle of a set of three that share one horizon line and one evening light. The star over the empty hills comes first, and the three wise men on the road come last. Hung in a row, the panels join into a single landscape that tells the Christmas story from left to right. Alone, it is the natural choice for a dining room, a front hall or a church nursery during Advent.

Families often give it to new parents in December, or to a grandmother who sets out a crèche every year.

Prints are produced to order in the United States as giclées on heavyweight archival matte paper, with free US shipping. They are sold without a frame, in sizes from 5x7 to 24x36 inches and in metric and A sizes. A digital file can be ordered too.