American Art Collaborative

Henry Ossawa Tanner might have created this scene with a passage from the Gospel of Luke in mind. In the background, Mary and Joseph approach the inn at Bethlehem, represented by the shadowed entrance on the left (Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1991). Tanner did not visit Tangier until 1912, which suggests that he probably painted this scene in his Paris studio from postcards or photographs of the Moroccan city