Adoration of the Shepherds

In 1532 Titian began working for Francesco Maria della Rovere, the Duke of Urbino, a professional soldier who commanded armies for Venice and for the pope and bought pictures in the gaps between campaigns. This Nativity is among the first things to come out of that arrangement. It is painted on a wooden panel, at a size meant for a room you live in rather than an altar. Joseph holds the child out toward a young shepherd who has dropped to his knees, and far behind them an angel is still breaking the news to the men left with the flock. The panel stayed at Urbino for nearly a century. When the last duke died in 1631, the collection came to Florence as the inheritance of his granddaughter Vittoria della Rovere, who married the Medici grand duke Ferdinando II in 1634.