Altarpice depitcing the Adoration of the Shepherds

Altarpiece and frame made of carved, painted and gilded poplar wood. The relief is made from four pieces of wood joined vertically. In the centre Christ is shown asleep on Mary's cloak. The Virgin and Joseph watch over him to the right; two shepherds kneel and one stands to the left. Three winged angels are shown behind Christ, and behind them a cave can just be seen with an ox and an ass inside. Behind Joseph are shown two female servants, one standing under the stable and another, seen through an arched doorway, who is drying a cloth before a fire. At the top of the relief the Journey of the Magi is shown to the right, and the Annunciation to the Shepherds on the left. The relief is in a frame with double columns and a carved frieze along the top.

The treatment of relief in this altarpiece is characteristic of Lombard sculpture from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. The depth of relief varies from very shallow, in the scenes at the top, to much deeper (almost in the round) in the foreground figures.

The relief was previously only ascribed to the Lombard school, second half of the fifteenth century. Paolo Venturoli suggested that it was from the workshop of Giovan Angelo del Maino; more recently Raffaelle Casciaro has argued convincingly that this relief is from the workshop of the De Donati brothers. Giovan Pietro and Giovanni Ambrogio De Donati were active in Milan from around 1478 to the late 1520s.

This altarpiece was acquired in 1898 from a dealer in London but nothing is known about its original location.

This altarpiece, showing the shepherds and the three kings visiting the new-born Christ, skilfully uses different layers of relief. The scenes at the top show the journey of the shepherds and kings before they reached the holy family. These scenes are carved in low relief, in contrast to the main figures at the front that project forward from the background. This unusual relief style was characteristic of sculpture from Lombardy. This piece may have been made by the workshop of Giovan Pietro and Giovanni Ambrogio De Donati, who were prolific sculptors working in Milan around 1500.

258-1898