Adoration of the Shepherds

Ribera was a Spaniard who spent his working life in Naples, then ruled by Spain, and he had built his name on harsh, unflinching scenes, flayings and martyrdoms lit by a cruel raking light. This is late work, made in 1650, two years before he died, and the hardness has gone soft. Shepherds crowd around the newborn child, one bringing a bound lamb, the light now warm and low rather than punishing. He signed it plainly on a stone at the lower right, naming himself Jusepe de Ribera, Spaniard, and a member of the Roman academy, still marking the homeland this Valencia-born painter had left decades before.