Adoration of the Shepherds

Murillo made this around 1650 in Seville, just after the city lived through one of the worst years in its history. The plague of 1649 killed a huge share of its people, and the churches that had once poured out commissions were emptier and poorer. Against that, his shepherds are almost defiantly ordinary. They crowd around the newborn Christ with the gifts a working household could actually spare, a lamb with its legs tied, a pair of hens, a basket of eggs. Murillo meant it as the plain man's version of the Adoration of the Magi, with no kings and no gold. The faces are the faces of Seville, lit warmly against the dark of the stable.