The Adoration of the Shepherds

The Adoration of the Shepherds, in the National Gallery London, depicts the arrival of the shepherds at the stable in Bethlehem to worship the newborn Christ—a scene combining the humble and the miraculous in a night setting increasingly popular in fifteenth-century devotional painting. Ercole de' Roberti's treatment situates the event in an atmospheric nocturnal setting, his angular figures caught in the luminous quality of the divine Infant's light. The painting belongs to the predella cycle that includes The Institution of the Eucharist and The Israelites Gathering Manna.

The night setting allows Roberti to explore the contrast between the warm light emanating from the Christ Child and the surrounding darkness, a luministic challenge he meets with the controlled tonal graduation available through oil technique. The shepherds' rough, urgent postures contrast with the formal stillness of the Virgin and the sleeping Joseph.