Adoration of the Magi

In the mid-1570s Jacopo Bassano was running a family workshop with his sons, turning out the same Bible subjects again and again. That is why scholars have never agreed on who painted this Adoration. It has been given to the father working with his son Francesco, to Francesco alone, and to the younger son Leandro. The Galleria Borghese follows recent studies, dates it to around 1576 and names Jacopo himself, noting that the family deliberately kept one style for devotional pictures. Look past the kings into the distance. The museum identifies the town in the far valley as Bassano, the painter's home. On the stable roof a peacock, an old symbol of rebirth, sits under the ray of the star. Down in front, servants handle the gifts of metal jugs and bowls, and a dog stretches out on a wooden chest.