The Adoration of the Magi

Gerard David's Adoration of the Kings is an oil painting on oak panel showing the three kings before the infant Jesus, a subject that in this period often gave painters the chance to display rich costumes for the Magi and their retinues. Here the treatment is comparatively simple and restrained: five main figures fill most of the picture space, and the angels so prominent in many of David's Nativity scenes are absent. Shepherds are blended into the scene, two kneeling behind the king on the right, and a turbaned figure standing in shadow on the stairs of the tower at left is identified as Saint Joseph. The traditional ox and ass appear in the background beyond a ruined wall, and the walls of Bethlehem rise to the right. The panel probably belonged to an altarpiece together with a Lamentation, now also in the National Gallery, though this cannot be stated with certainty. Over the centuries the painting was attributed to several other Netherlandish masters, and today it is considered mainly the work of David himself, assisted by his workshop.

Painter

Gerard David

Date

1515

Medium

oil paint, oak panel

Dimensions

60 × 59 cm

Museum

National Gallery, London

Movement

Early Netherlandish painting

Genre

religious art

Depicts

Balthazar, Melchior, adoration of the Magi, Caspar, Christ Child

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