The Adoration of the Kings

Girolamo da Treviso the Younger was a versatile Italian painter who moved between Treviso, Bologna, and eventually England, where he died in 1544 serving Henry VIII. This Adoration of the Kings, painted around 1520 and now in the National Gallery in London, reflects the cosmopolitan trajectory of his career. The Adoration of the Magi was among the most compositionally ambitious subjects in Renaissance religious painting, requiring the artist to orchestrate a large crowd of figures, exotic animals, architectural settings, and the focal event of homage to the infant Christ. The work filters the tradition running from Gentile da Fabriano through Leonardo through a northern Italian sensibility.

Girolamo organizes the procession of Magi and their retinue across a broad foreground, with the Holy Family providing a stable vertical anchor. The palette is rich with exotic colours — deep purples, gold, and warm earth tones — and figures show varied physiognomy and costume.