Provenance
Cardinal Joseph Fesch [1763-1839], Rome; (his sale, Palazzo Ricci, Rome, 17 March 1845 and days following, no. 874). Claudius Tarral, Paris; (Tarral sale, Christie & Manson, London, 11 June 1847, no. 55); purchased by (Banting) for Thomas Wentworth Beaumont [d. 1848], Bretton Hall, Yorkshire, England; by inheritance to his son, Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, 1st baron Allendale [1829-1907], Bretton Hall; by inheritance to his son, Wentworth Canning Blackett Beaumont, 1st viscount and 2nd baron Allendale [1860-1923], Bretton Hall; by inheritance to his son, Wentworth Henry Canning Beaumont, 2nd viscount and 3rd baron Allendale [1890-1956], Bretton Hall;[1] sold August 1937 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[2] sold 1938 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] Provenance according to Kress records in NGA curatorial files.
[2] The painting is listed in the Duveen Brothers General Stock Book for the period 1 June 1937 to April 1941, and is annotated "Purchased Aug. 3, 1937" (copy in NGA curatorial files; Duveen Brothers Records, Accession No. 960015, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 66, box 186). See also the letter of 4 March 1965 from Ellis Waterhouse to Fern Rusk Shapley, in NGA curatorial files.
[3] Letter, 21 June 1938, Duveen Brothers, Inc., to Samuel Kress (Duveen Brothers Records, Accession No. 960015, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 329, box 474, folder 5; copy in NGA curatorial files). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2049.
Accession Number
1939.1.289
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
overall: 90.8 x 110.5 cm (35 3/4 x 43 1/2 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Tags
Painting Renaissance (1400–1599) Oil Painting Panel Painting Italian
Background & Context
Background Story
The Adoration of the Shepherds from 1505-10 is attributed to Giorgione (c. 1477-1510), the Venetian painter whose small surviving oeuvre includes some of the most mysterious and influential paintings of the Italian Renaissance. The Adoration of the Shepherds depicts the biblical episode in which shepherds come to worship the newborn Christ, rendered in the atmospheric landscape and poetic mood that define Giorgione's work. The 1505-10 date places this in Giorgione's mature period, when he was producing the landscape-infiltrated religious paintings that would influence the development of Venetian landscape painting throughout the 16th century.
Cultural Impact
The Adoration of the Shepherds is important in the history of Venetian painting because it demonstrates Giorgione's revolutionary integration of landscape and religious subject. The atmospheric landscape that surrounds the sacred narrative—not merely a backdrop but an active participant in the mood of the painting—established the type of landscape-infiltrated religious painting that would define Venetian painting from Giorgione through the 16th century.
Why It Matters
The Adoration of the Shepherds is Giorgione's landscape-infiltrated religion: shepherds worshipping the newborn Christ surrounded by an atmospheric landscape that is not merely backdrop but active participant in the mood. The 1505-10 painting established the Venetian tradition of integrating landscape with sacred narrative that would define the 16th century.
