The Adoration of the Shepherds

On 12 December 1785, after the death of the marquis de Véri, a Paris collector, his pictures were auctioned, and two Fragonards he had ordered as a pair were sold one after the other, lots 36 and 37. This Nativity was one of them. The other was The Lock, a bedroom scene of a young man bolting a door, set against this one as profane love beside sacred. The Lock went on through a string of owners. This canvas drops out of the record until 1946. The Louvre bought The Lock in 1974, and in 1988 the collector Roberto Polo gave this one, so the two hang together again in Room 929. The light seems to come from the Child himself, while a shepherd in the foreground bows until his forehead almost touches the ground.