Cleveland Museum of Art
Adoration of the Shepherds
Bernardo CavallinoLinkedCulture matchlcp-c51b3b413c13
- Date
- c. 1650
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Culture
- Italy, 17th century
- Department
- European Painting and Sculpture
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 143644
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
Cavallino worked in Naples where he was not well known during his lifetime, but was alert to the work of contemporaries whose innovations he transformed with extraordinary delicacy and charm. The adoration of the shepherds is a traditional subject, but here Cavallino shows it in a new light. The focus is on Mary, indicating that she alone is aware of the angels who flutter above with ribbons proclaiming Gloria in Excelsis Deo (Glory to God in the highest). Joseph and the shepherds stolidly regard the child, but the sweetness of Mary's expression simultaneously reveals her love, pride, and humility. The artist signed this painting with his monogram “BC” on the rump of the ox.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Provenance
- Marquis de Villette, Château de Villette, Oise | -1875: Jean Baptiste Angiot, Paris (sale: Hotel Drouot, Paris, March 1-2, 1875, cat. no. 41, as Benedetto Castiglione) | 1875 - 1968: Private Collection, Buenos Aires | 1968: [Frederick Mont, New York], sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1968 | 1968 - Present: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
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