The Adoration of the Magi c.1660-1700
Oil on canvas | 248.5 x 187.6 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 404993
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The Virgin is shown full-length, seated on a dais, to the left. She holds the infant Christ on her lap. Before them kneel a king, at the centre. A second king is shown on the right in profile, with his left arm extended, and a third king is positioned behind the Virgin, looking over her shoulder. In the sky above putti look down on the scene.
This is possibly the 'Adorazione de' Santi Maggi' recorded by De Dominici (1743) as among the pictures by Giordano recently sent to England by Cavalier Charpin. If it is by Giordano then it would have been an early work, strongly under the influence of Ribera, but the painting looks rather coarse and it is perhaps more likely to be by an imitator rather than by Giordano himself. A similiar composition by Giordano is recorded by an engraving in reverse of Pietro Monaco's as in the collection of Flaminio Corner at Venice in the eighteenth century.
The painting appears in Pyne's illustrated Royal Residences of 1819, hanging in the King's Drawing Room at Windsor Castle (RCIN 922107).Provenance
Probably acquired by Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the painting seen at Leicester House by George Vertue in 1750 (BL add MS 19,027, f. 20); recorded in the King's Drawing Room at Windsor Castle in 1813
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Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on canvas
Measurements
248.5 x 187.6 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
Category
Object type(s)