The Adoration of the Shepherds | |
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Artist | El Greco |
Year | 1596 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 364 cm× 137 cm(143 in× 54 in) |
Location | National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest |
The Adoration of the Shepherds is a painting of the traditional subject which was painted by El Greco in 1596. It is in the European painting collection of the National Museum of Art of Romania. [1] This unusually tall painting is a work in the group of equally tall paintings which the artist made as part of his 1596 commission known as the Doña María de Aragón Altarpiece for the Colegio de Dona Maria de Aragón in a building that is now the location of Palacio del Senado in Madrid. [2] El Greco's signature, in Greek, may be seen on the paper in the lower left corner. [2]
According to surviving documentation, delivery was promised by Easter of 1599, but papers show it was shipped from Toledo to Madrid in 1600 and final payment was made for the "high altar" in September of that year. [2]
Today we know nothing about El Greco's design of the high altar, the height of original display of the paintings nor who commissioned them, since the altarpiece was deconstructed during the French occupation of Spain under Joseph Bonaparte. The original commission consisted of six paintings and six sculptures which visually embodied the idea of the Incarnation of the Son of God, reflecting the title of the chapel as well as being the subject of many theological debates in contemporary Spain. [1] It was dismantled in the early 19th century and the sculptures are lost, while the other five paintings were moved to the Prado Museum. [1]
Distortion of body characterizes the Adoration of the Shepherds like many altarpiece paintings of El Greco. Sometimes these were installed at floor level and sometimes high above the viewer, so it is not known if viewing perspective was taken into account. Like earlier designs El Greco made of the same subject, the secular world is shown in the lower half, and the divine world is shown in the upper half. Due to the difficulties of displaying such tall paintings, some of these tall masterpieces by El Greco were cut in half, leaving fragments in various collections such as the heavenly fragment Concert of Angels , today in Athens and the secular fragment Opening of the Fifth Seal , today in New York.
El Greco's nativity scenes were very popular throughout his career, and six were listed in the 1621 inventory of his son Jorge Manuel's possessions. This explains how this painting came to be separated from the rest of the altarpiece, as it was possibly the most popular subject. A smaller copy of this painting painted in 1598 is in the collection of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica. [2]
In 1581 Philip III of Spain granted land for the building of this chapter of nuns of the Order of St. Augustine, which was named after its commissioner, Dona Maria de Aragón, a lady-in-waiting to the queen, Dona Ana de Austria. She negotiated initial delivery of the altarpiece in 1596, but died sometime before payment in September of 1600. El Greco had promised delivery by Easter 1599, but only delivered in July 1600, whereupon it was appraised by Dona Maria de Aragón's executors in August 1600. [3] The altarpiece was intact until 1808, but after deconstruction it was no longer on show there and on 17 August 1836 Baron Taylor purchased it for King Louis Philippe, at whose sale 21 May 1853, lot number #108, it subsequently went to the brothers Émile Péreire (1800-1875) and Isaac Péreire (1806-1880), Paris; from their sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 30–31 January 1868, lot number 31, it went to Félix Bamberg, consul of Messina, at whose sale in 1879, it was purchased for the Royal Palace, Sinaia. [2] [1]
Doménikos Theotokópoulos, most widely known as El Greco, was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. El Greco was a nickname, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters often adding the word Κρής, which means "Cretan" in Ancient Greek.
Annibale Carracci was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Along with his brother and cousin, Annibale was one of the progenitors, if not founders of a leading strand of the Baroque style, borrowing from styles from both north and south of their native city, and aspiring for a return to classical monumentality, but adding a more vital dynamism. Painters working under Annibale at the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese would be highly influential in Roman painting for decades.
An altarpiece is an work of art in painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, or a set of them, the word can also be used of the whole ensemble behind an altar, otherwise known as a reredos, including what is often an elaborate frame for the central image or images. Altarpieces were one of the most important products of Christian art especially from the late Middle Ages to the era of Baroque painting.
The Museo del Prado, officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It houses collections of European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th century, based on the former Spanish royal collection, and the single best collection of Spanish art. Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture in 1819, it also contains important collections of other types of works. The numerous works by Francisco Goya, the single most extensively represented artist, as well as by Hieronymus Bosch, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, and Diego Velázquez, are some of the highlights of the collection. Velázquez and his keen eye and sensibility were also responsible for bringing much of the museum's fine collection of Italian masters to Spain, now one of the largest outside of Italy.
Adoration of the Shepherds is the name of numerous paintings depicting an episode in the story of Jesus's nativity in which shepherds are near witnesses to his birth in Bethlehem, arriving soon after he is actually born. The episode is recounted, or at least implied, in the Gospel of Luke and follows on from the annunciation to the shepherds, in which the shepherds are summoned by an angel to the scene of the birth. Like the episode preceding it, the adoration is a common subject in art, where it is often combined with the Adoration of the Magi. In such cases it is typically just referred to by the latter title.
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