Adoration of the Shepherds (Cariani)

The Adoration of the Shepherds by Giovanni Cariani is a panel painting of about 1515-1517, now in the Royal Collection of the United Kingdom.

It was one of the large group of paintings bought by Charles I of England from the collection of Vincenzo II, last of the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua in 1628.

This "eccentric" composition, "most unusual for an Adoration", may be explained by the painting having started out as a Rest on the Flight into Egypt, without the shepherds.

[2] Cariani, especially in his early period, had a taste for wide horizontal compositions, and also overlapping figures at the front of the picture space.

Details of the landscape are re-used in later paintings by Cariani, and an interest in German art becomes unmistakable in some later works of his.

[7] The early history of the painting rests on a "CR" (Carolus Rex, "King Charles") branded on the back of the poplar panel, and a label "now almost illegible", reading "From Mantua / 1628 / No.