Dispute of the three wise men.

This undated canvas at the National Museum in Kraków depicts a disputation between the Three Wise Men — the Magi — likely set either before or after the Adoration, when the learned astronomers would naturally have conferred on the meaning of the star and the prophecies they had pursued. Strozzi's interest in groups of older, characterful men is well documented throughout his career, and the subject allowed him to paint three distinct physiognomies and temperaments in dialogue, a compositional exercise descended from Leonardo's studies of contrasting faces. As a Capuchin friar turned painter in Genoa and later Venice, Strozzi was steeped in biblical narrative, and he brought to these encounters an ethnographic specificity — different complexions, headdresses and robes that reflect the Magi's traditional identification with three continents. The Kraków collection preserves several Baroque Italian works that entered Polish noble collections in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Without a firm date the work cannot be placed precisely within Strozzi's career, but the broadly applied impasto and warm, amber-drenched light suggest the Venetian period. The heads, which are the true subject of the picture, are rendered with Strozzi's characteristic sculptural solidity, each face a separate study in age and reflection.