The Adoration of the Shepherds

1530s

Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo

Artist, Brescian, c. 1480 - 1548 or after

Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo

Attributed to

Shown from the waist up, four people surround a nude infant boy in this nighttime horizontal painting. All the people have pale skin. The pudgy baby has short brown hair and lies on a white cloth, holding the end of a translucent yellow cloth with one chubby hand. The largest person is Mary, who stands just right of center. Her hair is covered by a sheer white cloth, and she wears a lapis-blue robe over a muted rose-pink, long-sleeved dress. She holds her fingertips together over the child as she looks down at him. Two bearded men with gray hair stand to our left of Mary. The leftmost man faces our right in profile. He holds both hands up, palms out and fingers loosely curled toward the child. He wears a soft red cloak over a pale yellow garment. He and the man next to him look down at the baby. That second man holds one hand to his chest over a pale gray cloak, and the rest of his body is lost in shadow. The final person is a clean-shaven man to the right. He tips his head up and holds his hands together in prayer. He wears an olive-green jacket over a white shirt. This person tilts his head back with lips parted and eyes lifted so he looks up and to our left. The background is dark and includes what appears to be a stone building with arched windows. In the deep distance in the upper right corner of the painting, three small people are illuminated by a glow of golden and coral-red light breaking through a bank of dark clouds. A winged angel hovers in the light.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 23


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 84.5 x 119.7 cm (33 1/4 x 47 1/8 in.)
    framed: 110.8 x 146.5 x 7.6 cm (43 5/8 x 57 11/16 x 3 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1961.9.86


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Don Bartola Bremuda, near Brescia, Italy. (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence and Rome);[1] sold 1950 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] According to Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV - XVI Century, London, 1968: 90-91.
[2] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2054.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1998

  • Die Nacht [The Night], Haus der Kunst, Munich, 1998-1999, no. 9, repro.

2018

  • Titian and Sixteenth-Century Painting in Venice and Brescia, Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia, 2018, no. 51, repro.

Bibliography

1951

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 275, no. 128, as The Adoration of the Child.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 121, as The Adoration of the Child.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 108, repro., as The Adoration of the Child.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 90-91, fig. 217.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 322, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:420; 2:pl. 300, as Attributed to Savoldo.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 369, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20175951


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