Adoration of the shepherds

Adoration of the Shepherds at the Certosa di San Martino, painted in 1641, is a late work depicting the pastoral visitors to the newborn Christ. Reni's luminous late style brings particular radiance to the nocturnal Nativity scene. Guido Reni's refined classicism and ethereal beauty made him one of the most celebrated painters in Europe during his lifetime, his graceful idealized figures expressing a spirituality that appealed equally to Counter-Reformation piety and aristocratic aesthetic sensibility.

The divine light emanating from the Christ Child illuminates the adoring shepherds. Reni's late style shows increasingly ethereal handling and a silvery palette that anticipates Rococo luminosity.