painting

The Adoration of the Shepherds

Jacob Jordaens I

About this work

Object details

TitleThe Adoration of the Shepherds
Datec. 1616-1617
Mediumoil on canvas
Measurements157,7 × 118 × 2,9 cm
Inventory number5101

More about this work

The Adoration of shepherds bears witness to the powerful impact that Peter Paul Rubens had on the young Jordaens. More specifically, Jordaens must have studied the Adoration of shepherds that Rubens painted around 1614 (Antwerp, Church of St Paul). The present picture is related to several Adorations that Jordaens painted in quick succession and are preserved in New York (Metropolitan Museum, inv. no. 67.187.76; 1616), Grenoble (Museé des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. M.G.84; c. 1617) and The Hague(Mauritshuis, inv. no. 937, c. 1618). Jordaens has stacked the figures up in the space and is inviting the viewers to share in the miraculous event on Christmas Eve. In the right foreground a delighted shepherd is extendin-g his right hand to us. The Virgin, a woman of the people, is depicted frontally, which is an unusual pose for her in this context. The peasant woman holding a bird and the dog standing up to get a better view accentuate the unforced nature of this tender and sacred moment. In contrast to earlier paintings in the Netherlandish tradition, the Christ Child is not radiating a supernatural light. Jordaens opted instead for a more realistic solution, and has the faces in the dark stable reflect the light of a candle held by one of the shepherdesses. In the background we see Joseph with a lantern, while a view off into the distance shows the evening twilight fading away. In nocturnal scenes of his kind artists focus on the subtle rendering of the reflections of light, cast shadows and half shadows that intensify the mysterious and hushed nature of the subject. They had learned this lesson from Caravaggio and his many followers both south and north of the Alps. Although Jordaens never set foot in Italy, he could catch a glimpse of the master in Antwerp’s Dominican church. Hanging there was Caravaggio’s Madonna of the rosary, which had been bought on the insistence of Rubens and a few other painters (now in Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. 147). But above all he learned of the Lombardic painter’s working method through the Caravaggesque paintings that Rubens made in 1614-1615 in Antwerp.