The Adoration of the Shepherds

Three shepherds kneel in the stable at Bethlehem, and Mary lifts the cloth to show them the newborn Child. The light is warm, the colours are subdued, and every gesture is small and tender. Jan de Bray signed and dated the panel on a leg of the crib, 1665, with his initials joined in a single monogram.

For almost a century it moved between private collections in Leipzig, from the cabinet of Gottfried Winkler, catalogued in 1768, to that of Julius Baumgärtner, who kept it until 1855. In 1997 the Friends of the Mauritshuis Foundation bought it with substantial support from H.B. van der Ven, and it has hung in the museum on long-term loan from the Foundation ever since.