The Adoration of the Shepherds

An inventory of 1493 records that Eleonora of Aragon, Duchess of Ferrara, owned a diptych showing the birth and death of Christ. This small panel is the birth. It was the left half of a hinged pair that opened and closed like a book, and when it was shut the outside was covered in cherry-red velvet with ornaments of gilded silver. Traces of that velvet are still on the back. Inside, Ercole de' Roberti has Mary and Joseph kneel with their hands pressed together, the ox and the ass behind the wicker manger. The third worshipper is a shepherd whose clothes are torn at the knee. Far off on the hillside, three tiny figures look up at an angel in the sky, the moment the shepherds first heard the news. The other half of the pair, The Dead Christ, is also here in Room 51.