L'Adoration des Mages

Oudry's L'Adoration des Mages from 1717 is a significant early work in his career, predating his establishment as the premier French animal and hunting painter and demonstrating his initial ambition in the tradition of religious history painting. The Adoration of the Magi — the three wise men kneeling before the infant Christ in Bethlehem — was one of the most frequently painted subjects in Christian art, and Oudry's treatment aligns with the French academic tradition in its ambition of scale and figural complexity. The work shows the range that Oudry possessed before he specialized.

The composition organizes the traditional three-figure group of Magi, their retinue, Mary and Joseph, and the infant in a stable setting lit by the divine glow of the Christ child. Oudry's early figure painting shows the influence of his teacher Largillière in the quality of light and skin rendering.