Adoration of the Magi
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Adoration of the Magi is the name traditionally given to the Christian subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having found Jesus by following a star, lay before him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and worship him. In the church calendar, this event is commemorated in Western Christianity as the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6). The Orthodox Church commemorates the Adoration of the Magi on the Feast of the Nativity (December 25). Christian iconography has considerably expanded the bare account of the Biblical Magi given in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew (2:1-11) and used it to press the point that Jesus was recognized, from his earliest infancy, as king of the earth.
Treatments by individual artists
Many hundreds of artists have treated the subject. A very partial list of the most celebrated is:
- Bosch: Museo del Prado, Madrid
- Botticelli: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (see Adoration of the Magi of 1475 (Botticelli))
- Pieter Bruegel the Elder: National Gallery, London (see The Adoration of the Kings (Bruegel))
- Pieter Brueghel the Younger: National Gallery, Prague
- Edward Burne-Jones: The Star of Bethlehem, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
- Adoration of the Magi (Andrea della Robbia), Victoria and Albert Museum
- Dürer: Adoration of the Magi, Uffizi Gallery, Florence
[[File:Fra Angelico Adoration.jpg|thumb|200px|Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, 15th century]]
- Fra Angelico: Museo S. Marco, Florence
- Gentile da Fabriano: Adoration of the Magi, Uffizi Gallery, Florence
- Ghirlandaio: Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence
- Benozzo Gozzoli: Convent of S. Marco, Florence
- Benozzo Gozzoli: Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence
- Leonardo da Vinci: Uffizi Gallery, Florence (see also Adoration of the Magi (Leonardo))
- Filippo Lippi: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- Lo Spagna: altarpiece, Museo S. Francesco, Trevi
- Mantegna: Getty Museum
- Masaccio: predella from the Pisa altarpiece, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
- Juan Bautista Mayno: Museo del Prado, Madrid
- Memling: Museo del Prado, Madrid
- Murillo: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
- Perugino: fresco, church of the Madonna delle Lacrime, Trevi; fresco, Oratorio dei Bianchi, Città della Pieve; National Gallery of Umbrian Art, Perugia
- Nicola Pisano: Baptistry, Pisa
- Poussin: Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
- Rubens, c 1617-18: Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon
- Rubens: King's College Chapel, Cambridge
- Rubens: Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp
- Tiepolo: Alte Pinakothek, Munich
- Tissot, James:Brooklyn Museum
- Velazquez: Museo del Prado, Madrid (see Adoration of the Magi (Velázquez))
- Rogier van der Weyden: St Columba Altarpiece, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
- Gottfried Helnwein: Denver Art Museum
See also