Figure from a Crèche: Infant Christ with Crib and Straw, 1780-1830. Italy, Naples, late 18th-early 19th century. Painted terracotta; overall: 36.1 cm (14 3/16 in.). The practice of creating scenes of the Nativity for the home dates from the early 1700s in Italy, where people began to set up doll-like figures of about a foot or less in height. The custom was particularly popular in Naples around 1800, where crèche scenes (crèche means cradle, or crib) included many figures, whose heads and hands of painted terracotta, stuffed cloth bodies, and clothing adapted from contemporary local costumes gave them an amazingly realistic character.