Presepio Nativity Scene January 4, 2011

In a popular annual tradition, the Spencer Museum's eighteenth-century Italian Presepio is on display in the Renaissance Gallery on the third floor for the month of December. The opulent nativity scene is in its original architectural setting of a ruined basilica, with Italian street figures and accessories adding period detail. These intricate figures are part of the collection donated by Sallie Casey Thayer in 1917 to the University of Kansas as the basis for the university art collection, which was dedicated in 1928. The Spencer's Presepio is one of the finest examples of its genre in the United States.