Adoration of the Child

In 1483 a huge altarpiece arrived in Florence from Bruges, painted by the Netherlandish master Hugo van der Goes for the banker Tommaso Portinari. Its shepherds, with rough and weathered faces, gave Florentine painters something new to study. This round panel was made in Florence towards the end of the same century, and the museum points out a northern accent in just such figures. Look at the two shepherds peering in at the edge of the hut, one holding a lamb, and at the grey-bearded Joseph leaning on his staff. The Child lies on a red cloth and reaches up to the young John the Baptist. A 1992 study also gave this unnamed painter some of the frescoes in the Vatican rooms of Pope Alexander VI, painted between 1492 and 1494. The panel is currently not on display.