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The Adoration of the Christ Child

Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen (Workshop of Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen (Netherlandish, c. 1470/75–by 1533))

c. 1515

Medium: Oil on panel
Classification: Painting
Dimensions: 98.5 × 76.3 cm (38 3/4 × 30 1/16 in.); Framed: 108 × 86.4 × 9.6 cm (42 1/2 × 34 × 3 3/4 in.)
Culture: Netherlands
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Credit line: George F. Harding Collection
Rights: Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

About this work

In this joyous imagining of Jesus’s birth, choirs of angels—each with a different musical attribute—fill the stable with celebratory music. The artist elaborated the setting with luxurious red porphyry and green marble architectural features adorned with floral designs called grotteschi. These organic yet fantastical decorative motifs were inspired by the recent excavation of the Domus Aureus, Emperor Nero’s grand, first-century palace in Rome. Here, these details are likely meant to evoke the tradition that Christ’s birth took place in a stable constructed in the ruins of the biblical king David’s palace.