The Adoration of the Shepherds

Adriaen Isenbrant

National Gallery of Art

A young woman and older man accompanied by two winged angels kneel to gaze at a tiny infant lying on an overturned basket in this vertical painting. They and the five men standing or kneeling to each side all have pale skin. The woman, Mary, is on our left and leans forward with her hands stretched out toward the infant. Her long, honey-blond hair is covered with a pleated white cloth, and she wears a marine-blue gown over a garment with garnet-red sleeves. The older man, Joseph, kneels opposite her. He has a gray beard and hair and wears a charcoal-gray cloak over a scarlet-red robe. The nude infant, Jesus, lies on the basket between them next to a bundle of wheat. The angels are about half the size of Mary and Joseph and kneel just beyond Jesus. They both have blond hair and wings striped in shades of carnation pink, canary yellow, and celestial blue. The angel on our left wears an olive-green robe, and the other wears a white robe shaded with arctic blue. Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and the angels gather on a worn, tiled stone floor outside the ruins of a building with an exposed interior. Ornamented bronze and rose-pink panels are set into pillars and over openings. Ivy grows along the upper edges of the partially ruined walls, and small tree branches sprout on the roof. An owl and another bird perch on the remains of a wood roof tucked behind the first structure. An ox and a donkey are tucked into a back corner of the building below. Three men dressed in burgundy and black enter the ruins from the left. One wears a soft black hat and holds a musical instrument to his lips. Two more men kneel beyond Joseph on the right, and one wears pea green with a rose-pink cape. The background beyond the building and people is filled with a green and blue landscape scattered with buildings and tiny people walking and dancing around a fire.