About This Stamp
On October 27, 1976, the Postal Service issued a 13-cent multicolored Christmas stamp featuring a rendition of John Singleton Copley’s Nativity. Bradbury Thompson designed the stamp.
The multicolored stamp was printed on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing seven-color Andreotti gravure press (601) as sheets of 200 subjects, tagged, perforated 11, and distributed as panes of 50 (10 across, five down). Mr. Zip, “MAIL EARLY IN THE DAY,” electric eye markings, and six plate numbers, one in each color used to print the sheet, are printed in the selvage.
American John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) painted Nativity in about 1776. The oil painting on canvas is 24½ x 30 inches and is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
Copley is considered the foremost artist of colonial America and one of its most prolific. Born on July 3, 1738, in Boston, Copley was trained by his stepfather, an engraver. In 1774 he immigrated to Europe, touring Italy and then settling in London in 1775. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy the following year and a full member in 1779. Copley died on September 9, 1815, in London.