Adoration of the Magi

Vittore Carpaccio

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Vittore Carpaccio. The drawing shows a woman with a child in the left foreground facing to the right, and three men in the right foreground facing towards them. The man closest to the child is in the lower centre of the composition, and is kneeled on the floor holding a lidded goblet up to the child. The child's torso faces forwards, but his head looks down at this object and he is reaching his left arm out towards it. Against the left edge stands a man holding a stick with his right knee raised and resting on a broken wall. Behind the scene on the left is a building with a simple, broken roof resting on wooden trunks and arches in the interior. Another man stands leaning against this building. In the right middle ground there are more figures engaged in unpacking a trunk, and in the background is a ruined classical town. Text from the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society: "No. 9 VITTORE CARPACCIO (Worked in Venice, 1489-1522) ADORATION OF THE MAGI Collection of Mr. C. Loeser. Pen and bistre with bistre wash. 22 x 32 cm. (8 3/4 x 12 5/8 in.) An attractive and spirited example of the master's romantic and idyllic feeling in the treatment of this and kindered themes, with a characteristic touch of living realism in the action of the servants opening the trunk of one of the Magi on the right. A certain carelessness and incorrectness of the proportions seem to indicate the latter years of the painter. I do not know from what source the architecture of the seaport with the classic ruins on the right is derived. This drawing has been slightly reduced in photographing. S. C."