Adoration of the Shepherds, by Carlo Dolci, c. 1670
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Adoration of the Shepherds

Carlo Dolci (Italian, 1616–1687)

c. 1670

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
Framed: 108 x 90.2 x 7.7 cm (42 1/2 x 35 1/2 x 3 1/16 in.); Unframed: 88.6 x 70.5 cm (34 7/8 x 27 3/4 in.)
Culture
Italy
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
Credit line
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
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

View at the Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

The historical significance of the Baroque painter Carlo Dolci, a precocious artist whose skill was recognized early by the leading Florentine patrons of his time, is often diminished due to his traditionalist compositions. Having gained local reputation as a talented portraitist and painter of religious narrative, Dolci's anti-Mannerist technique dismissed many of the leading Baroque trends as superfluous, retaining an unobtrusive and placid style in the manner of those before him. Having been a devout follower of the brotherhood of St. Benedict, Dolci draws upon a strict Christian iconography in his depiction of the shepherds' witness account of the birth of Christ.