The Three Kings have sought out the Child Jesus in the stable where he was born. They bear gifts (gold, frankincense & myrrh) & have journeyed from the East. New Testament (Matthew 2: 10-12). The stable at Bethlehem is attached to the ruins of a great classical building with a triumphal arch in the background. Across the foreground the kings & their attendants are presented with grandeur. Angels appear in the sky, along the ray of light by the side of the arch. The picture is dated 1573 in Roman numerals on the lowest step (bottom right). It was painted for the church of San Silvestro in Venice, where it remained until the church was altered in the 19th century. It was not an altarpiece but a large painting for the wall of the nave beside the altar of the confraternity dedicated to Saint Joseph. The dominant diagonal, formed by a beam of heavenly light, is echoed in the architecture & by the line of the adoring figures on the left. The Virgin & Child are at the intersection of this diagonal with another. Colour is based on the mid-tone grey of the architecture, used also to describe the silvery light. Veronese avoids pure reds & blues. ...

Create your own bespoke National Gallery art print of Carlo Dolci’s The Adoration of the Kings from our collection. About this painting The Adoration of the Kings, 1649 © The National Gallery, London This painting joined our collection in 1990. With our custom print service, you can order your own fully customised reproduction from the National Gallery Collection & exhibitions. Choose your own size, print material & frames & have your masterpiece delivered straight to your door. ...

The Three Kings have journeyed from the East to seek out the Child Jesus in the stable. They bear gifts of gold, frankincense & myrrh. New Testament (Matthew 2: 10-12). On the right Christ is shown on the cross at his Crucifixion. This is possibly a fragment of a predella; or perhaps a small complete picture. A predella is a long horizontal structure supporting the main panels of an altarpiece commonly decorated with diminutive images of saints or with narratives of their lives. ...

The 12 main panels of the altarpiece, one of the largest to be commissioned in 14th-century Florence, are in the National Gallery Collection. The predella shows scenes from the life of Saint Peter & is dispersed in different collections. The painting was commissioned for the church of San Pier Maggiore in Florence, probably by the Albizzi family. The accounts of 1370 show that a certain Niccolò, probably Niccolò di Pietro Gerini, designed the altarpiece. It was probably painted by Jacopo di Cione & assistants. It was completed in 1371. In the centre of the composition are Christ & the Virgin, dressed in white & gold, & seated upon a canopied throne surrounded by angels. The panels to each side are densely crowded with saints; to the left a prominent Saint Peter carries a model of San Pier Maggiore. The middle tier of the altarpiece, which would have been supported by heavy buttresses, showed (from left to right) the Nativity, the Adoration of the Kings, the Resurrection, the Maries at the Sepulchre, the Ascension & Pentecost. In the three pinnacles above, the Trinity appeared in the centre with adoring angels on each side. A later, more fluent, Florentine version of the theme is ' The Coronation of the Virgin' by Lorenzo Monaco. ...

The King kneeling to kiss the Child's foot has handed his gift to Joseph. This panel, probably painted in Florence during the first half of the 15th century, is close to the style of Fra Angelico, although not of high enough quality to be by him. This pain ...

The shepherds come to adore the new-born Jesus in the stable. New Testament (Luke 2: 8-14). In the background the angel announces the birth of Christ to them. Poussin uses a long-established motif, & places the Nativity in a stable built into the ruins of a classical building. This motif appears in the National Gallery's earliest Botticelli, ' Adoration of the Kings', & Poussin's contemporaries the Le Nain brothers used it in their ' Adoration of the Shepherds' of about 1640. The ruins represent the collapse of the Old Dispensation, the law of the Old Testament, superseded by the New Dispensation, the kingdom of Christ. The figure of the kneeling shepherd derives from that of one of the magi in ' The Adoration of the Magi' by the studio of Raphael (Rome, Vatican Loggie). Each figure shows a different stage in the bending motion of the human body. ...

Rembrandt: The adoration of the shepherdsshows Joseph behind the Virgin while two shepherds kneel before the crib. Behind, two women hold up a small child so that it can see Jesus. In the shadows on the right stand a group of five other figures, among them a boy with a dog. This Rembrandt painting is available as a print or framed print from the National Gallery. ...

In the right background is the Annunciation to the Shepherds. The painting was in the past attributed to Velazquez & to Zurbaran, & it has also been thought to be the work of various Neapolitan painters of the early 17th century. It is first recorded ...

Thirteen panels illustrating the life of Christ & comparable in size & style are known. They mainly depict incidents from the Life & Passion of Christ. It has been suggested that these works, probably with some others which are now lost, came from a ...

Painted in 1496 for the church of San Francesco in Città di Castello. Joseph is seated to the right while the shepherds kneel or prepare to kneel to the left; in the distance the angel is seen announcing Christ's birth. Within the portico is a scene representing the decree of taxation by the Emperor Augustus which had prompted Joseph & Mary to journey to Bethlehem. ...