Adoration of the Magi (Signorelli)

Adoration of the Magi is a painting in tempera on wood panel by Luca Signorelli (1450–1523) and his assistants, executed c. 1493–1494, and now in the Louvre in Paris.

It was probably the first painting he produced in Città di Castello, and originally hung over the main altar of the monastery church of Sant'Agostino.

[3] In his early 40s he had returned to live in Cortona, after working in Florence, Siena and Rome (1478–1484, painting a now lost section of the Sistine Chapel).

With an established reputation, he remained based in Cortona for the rest of his life, but often travelled to the cities of the region to fulfill commissions.

Probably trained by Piero della Francesca in Florence, as his cousin Giorgio Vasari wrote, his Quattrocento style was about to become rather out of date over the following years.

[5] In contrast to many of Signorelli's paintings, the scene is tranquil and rather static, with attention focused on the principal figures who are lined up across the foreground of the picture space.

[8] She bases this in part on the "impressive dignity" of the main figures, but also from what she regards as the tell-tale "badly-drawn horses ... for it will be noticed all through his work that he has never cared to thoroughly master their form, and paints them always with curious mannerisms of too closely-placed nostrils, and human eyebrows, which show how little attention he had given to their anatomy.