Adoration des mages

Adoration des mages—Adoration of the Magi—painted around 1450 and held at the Condé Museum in Chantilly, depicts the three Wise Men's visit to the infant Christ. This subject was among the most elaborately treated in Florentine Renaissance painting, offering opportunities for complex figure groups, exotic costumes, and landscape backgrounds. The Condé Museum's version by Pesellino belongs to a period when demand for Adoration subjects was particularly high in Florence, stimulated by the Medici family's patronage of elaborate Magi imagery.

Pesellino organises the Adoration with the kneeling eldest Magus before the infant Christ at one end of the composition, his two companions behind in order of age, and the Holy Family in a simple stable setting. His handling of the varied costumes and retinue reflects the subject's tradition of displaying international and exotic luxury while keeping the theological focus on the moment of worship.