The Adoration of the Shepherds – (Anton Raphael Mengs) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Anton Raphael Mengs

Date: 1765

Size: 264 x 152 cm

Technique: Oil On Canvas

Four men, a boy, an ox, and a donkey crowd around a young woman holding a baby inside a shadowy wooden structure in this vertical painting. Five angels, all with blond curly hair and two with wings, float in a bank of gray clouds above. The men below have tanned skin while the boy, woman, baby, and angels have pale skin with rosy cheeks. All of their faces are illuminated by the bright light emanating from the baby, Jesus, who lies cradled in the woman’s arms. That woman, Mary, sits to our left of center next to the manger, a wooden structure like a crate, overflowing with straw, on which she rests Jesus. An azure-blue mantle covers her blond hair and wraps around her pale lavender robe. Her body is angled to our left but her head turns toward us as she looks over our heads with hazel eyes. Touches of white paint on her lower lids suggest tears about to spill over. She has a delicate nose, a rounded chin, and her small pink mouth is closed. Jesus is swaddled in a white cloth and smiles slightly as he gazes up and off to our left. An older man, Joseph, leans into the scene from the shadows to Mary’s right, our left. He has a curly gray beard and hair, and wrinkles furrow his brow and line his cheeks. His lips are parted, and he looks down with dark eyes. His butterscotch-yellow cloak is wrapped tightly around his body. The heads of the donkey and ox look toward the light from below Joseph, next to the manger. The other three men and young boy gather to our right. The men wear pine-green, black, scarlet-red, or pale yellow garments, and two of them are bearded. They bow, kneel, and gesture toward Jesus. The one closest to us bows his head low on his hands and knees, a staff next to him on the ground. We see his cleanshaven, lowered face through his wide-spread arms. The young boy stands smiling next to Mary with his hands raised as if he were about to clap. These men and the boy are framed by an open doorway beyond them, which opens onto a dimly lit landscape with palm trees and hills under a pale blue and white sky. Above, the two angels closest to us have moss-green wings. They wear robes in sage green, rose pink, and golden yellow. Some look down with hands in prayer or arms crossed over their chest. The two at the back of the group, in the upper right corner of the painting, look up and off the composition as one points downward.