The Adoration of the Shepherds Anthonie Blocklandt

Descended from the noble Van Montfoort family, the painter served his apprenticeship in the Antwerp workshop of Frans Floris, before spending a short period in Italy in 1572, following the customary practice of the day. Having settled in Utrecht, he painted altarpieces and other works on religious themes, most of which later fell victim to iconoclastic rampages.
This composition of the Adoration of the Shepherds was painted in the last year of the artist’s life. Numerous features in the painting – the crowded, confined space, the way in which the figures are formed, as they lean over the Infant Christ with both curiosity and piety, and the handling of colour – show the influence of Blocklandst’s Italian study sojourn. The figure of the seated Virgin was inspired by a print by Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio after Parmigianino.