Adoration of the Kings (Bramantino)

The Adoration of the Kings
ArtistBramantino Edit this on Wikidata
Yearc. 1500
MediumOil on panel
SubjectAdoration of the Magi
Dimensions56.8 cm (22.4 in) × 55 cm (22 in)
LocationNational Gallery
IdentifiersArt UK artwork ID: the-adoration-of-the-kings-115392
[edit on Wikidata]

The Adoration of the Kings is a small oil painting on panel of c. 1500 by the Italian Renaissance painter and architect Bramantino in the National Gallery, London.[1] In it the Holy Family and the Magi are, unusually, joined by an adult John the Baptist, whose Baptism of Christ was celebrated on the same day as Epiphany in the liturgical calendar. At 56.8 cm (22.4 in) × 55 cm (22 in), it was probably commissioned for private use by an individual rather than for placing in a church, but nothing is known about its early history.[2] The panel entered the National Gallery in 1916 as part of the Layard Bequest.[3]

Bramantino was a painter in Milan, who is relatively little known outside northern Italy, where most of his paintings remain; this is the only known example in the United Kingdom.[4] In a Milanese art scene dominated by Leonardo da Vinci, Bramantino instead belonged to a tradition of "the structured but immobile realism of the Quattrocento ... that was fundamentally distinct from Leonardo's thought", descending from Piero della Francesca, via Bramantino's master Bramante.[5]

  1. ^ Per the NG in 2021. Dunkerton, 42 dates it to the "late 1490s", Freedberg, 387 to "1500–05", but all Bramantino datings are uncertain.
  2. ^ Dunkerton, 43, 50
  3. ^ "The Adoration of the Kings". The National Gallery.
  4. ^ Dunkerton, 43
  5. ^ Freedberg, 385