2016Christmas - First Day Cover

On Christmas stamps of Croatian Post we have intended that each part of Croatia be given its part of pride. So the towns and localities of Oštarije, Žminj, Zagreb, Luka Šipanska, Požega and Košljun… have already presented themselves to us with their Christmas scenes. This time the Christmas scene arrives from Dubrovnik, the town where the sides of the world were in touch. However, it is not sure that the picture was actually painted in Dubrovnik. A somewhat naive master could have actually painted it in Dubrovnik, on his way to some other place, watching with one eye Greece as his place of origin and with the other Venice where he was heading, already knowing something about it. Or, he had painted it already in Venice and still full of remembrances; or he had just copied a more virtuous template for a somewhat more modest order from Dubrovnik. Anyhow, the Christmas scene The Adoration of the Magi from the Duke's Palace has been dated in the 17th century and described as a work by an Italo-Cretan master. On one side the master seems to be developing a soft Venetian scene full of warm colours and with many realistic details, while on the other side he transforms the volumes into surfaces by strong, schematized strokes.