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Around 1607 Domenichino was a young man newly arrived in Rome, working in the orbit of Annibale Carracci, the painter then steering Italian art away from the twisting excesses of Mannerism toward something calmer and more natural. He was so steeped in Carracci's manner that for a long time this picture was filed as a copy of a lost work by the master. It is actually his own invention. He crowds in an unusually large group of shepherds, nine of them, and has one point at the child while glancing back over his shoulder out of the scene, as if still more are arriving at the door.