Adoration in the Forest

The Adoration in the Forest, painted by Fra Filippo Lippi around 1459, offers an unusual take on the Nativity. Instead of the stable at Bethlehem, the scene unfolds on a steep, dark pine forest strewn with felled trunks and chips, and no sky is visible. The naked Christ child lies on the grass while Mary adores him, and on the left John the Baptist, dressed in his camel-skin coat, holds a small cross and a scroll reading Ecce Agnus Dei. Above them appear Saint Romuald, founder of the Camaldolese monks, and the Holy Spirit as a dove. It was made for the private chapel of the Medici family in their Florentine palace, a rare privilege at the time. The axe and felled trees evoke John's preaching and the woodcutting life of the Camaldoli community, which the Medici supported. The work shows how Lippi could reshape a familiar subject with a highly personal iconography.

Painter

Filippo Lippi

Date

1459

Medium

oil paint, poplar panel

Dimensions

130 × 118 cm

Museum

Gemäldegalerie Berlin, Berlin

Genre

religious art

Depicts

dove, Child Saint John, God the Father, Mary, Nativity of Jesus, Christ Child

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