''The Adoration of the Magi'' is an

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

on wood panel attributed to the workshop of

Netherlandish The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Both Belgium and the Netherlands derived their ...

artist

Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on oa ...

, executed around 1499. It is housed in the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, USA. The museum's catalog assign it to around 1518, as having been finished by Bosch's workshop. According to Dendochronologic research, it could have been painted in 1493–1499.

Description

The painting is a traditional representation of the

Adoration of the Magi The Adoration of the Magi or Adoration of the Kings is the name traditionally given to the subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having found Jesus by following a star, ...

theme, similar to other Bosch ''

'' of New York, although reversed. Mary is at left, taking shelter under a small hut (which has clear perspective errors), while the three Magi bring their gifts to Jesus. As common in these pictures, Balthazar is kneeling with his crown lying on the ground, while the other two speak to each other. The background is more original. It depicts Joseph scratching his head, with a table represented in a wide-angle perspective; behind the hut are the ox and the donkey and two men armed with arrows. Hungarian art historian

Charles de Tolnay Charles de Tolnay, born Károly von Tolnai (May 27, 1899 – January 17, 1981), was a Hungarian art historian and an expert on Michelangelo. According to Erwin Panofsky, he was "one of the most brilliant art historians" of his time.Ulrike Wendlan ...

explained the more archaic elements as a citation of a miniature of the Utrecht Missal (1425–1430), which also includes, for example, the cracked wooden pillar of the hut or the

Manna Manna ( he, מָן, mān, ; ar, اَلْمَنُّ; sometimes or archaically spelled mana) is, according to the Bible, an edible substance which God provided for the Israelites during their travels in the desert during the 40-year period follow ...

fall representation in Gaspar's sleeve.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adoration of the Magi (Bosch, Philadelphia) 1490s paintings Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch Paintings in the Philadelphia Museum of Art Bosch Cattle in art category:Black people in art