L'Adoration des bergers

Zurbaran made this around 1638 for the Carthusian monastery at Jerez, in southern Spain, one of a group of large canvases for an order that lived in near-total silence. His shepherds kneel in from the dark, rough and particular, while a band of angels sings overhead. In the corner a lamb lies with its legs bound, a plain object painted with the same care as a face, pointing to the sacrifice the child will grow into. The picture did not stay in Spain. During Napoleon's occupation the charterhouse was stripped and its works scattered across Europe. That is how a Spanish altarpiece painting came to hang in Grenoble, in the French Alps, far from the silent monks it was made for.