Cleveland Museum of Art

Adoration of the Magi

Guido Reni

Date

1642

Medium

oil on canvas

Culture

Italy, 17th century

Department

European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This large altarpiece was in the artist's studio when he died, and parts of the composition appear incomplete. Some figures lack color, and Reni never finished the wooden structure. The silvery ground layer appears everywhere, as do his changes to the composition, such as the dog's head above the angel's right knee and the adjustment to Christ's right leg, covered in blue. However, Reni's death does not fully explain the unfinished quality. Toward the end of his career, he increasingly painted in a loose and sketchy manner—popular with collectors at the time—an approach implying that concrete forms could never depict the ideal, spiritual world Reni aimed to present.

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