Adorazione dei pastori

Rembrandt finished this small night scene in 1646, the last of a series on the life of Christ he had been painting on and off for 14 years for Frederik Hendrik, the prince who governed the Dutch Republic. By then the long war with Spain was nearly over. Rembrandt sets the nativity deep in a dark stable and lets almost all the light come from the newborn child himself, so that the faces of Mary, Joseph and the shepherds crowding in are lit as if by a lamp none of them is holding. The shepherds arrive still carrying the staffs and lanterns of their night out in the fields. It was among the last works Rembrandt would deliver to the Dutch court.