Anbetung der Könige

Anbetung der Könige — Adoration of the Kings — dated around 1555 and held at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, represents a mid-career formulation by Jacopo Bassano of the Epiphany subject on the unusual medium of jasper stone. The use of hardstone as a painting support — whether a slab of actual jasper or a jasper-colored preparation on panel — was a practice with precedent in Mannerist cabinet painting, where the natural patterns of precious or semi-precious stones were incorporated into the painted composition. The Kimbell Art Museum's Italian holdings are carefully selected for quality, and this unusual medium-subject combination would have been acquired for its rarity as well as its pictorial quality. The Adoration of the Kings as treated in the 1550s by Bassano reflects his mature compositional organization of the crowded epiphany scene, with the Eastern Magi integrating exotic costumes and animals into the nativity setting.

The jasper support creates a unique pictorial situation in which the natural veining and coloration of the stone become part of the visual field. Bassano would have adapted his technique to work with or against the stone's existing patterns, using the natural surface as ground and texture simultaneously. The relatively small scale likely implied by a hardstone support concentrates the multi-figure Adoration into a compressed, jewel-like composition.