Adoration of the Kings

This Adoration once hung in the sacristy of San Giacomo on the Giudecca, the long island that faces Venice across the water. It is a late work, from the 1580s, painted by Veronese with help from his workshop, and its mood is quieter than the glittering processions of kings he was known for. The landscape is kept to greens and browns, which the museum puts down to the influence of two contemporaries, Tintoretto and the Bassano family of painters, and the darker tones give the kings' meeting with the Child a melancholy air. By 1619 the canvas had left the church. It then belonged to Daniel Nys, a dealer in Venice who a few years later arranged the sale of the Gonzaga family's celebrated collection in Mantua to King Charles I of England.