L'Adoration des Mages

This long, low panel was painted in Venice around 1506, during the few crowded years that are all we have of Giorgione. He died young, probably of plague, in 1510, and left so little firmly his that scholars have argued for centuries over which pictures to trust; this Adoration is one they lean on to define his hand. Its stretched shape tells you it once ran along the base of a larger altarpiece, a predella. The holy family rests on the stable steps while the three kings crowd in from the right in bright eastern dress and turbans. The oldest of them kneels close, about to set down a golden bowl, while the youngest waits further back holding a glass orb.