The Procession of the Magi

Zanobi Strozzi created this work around 1445, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg. The painting reflects the artistic culture of the Early Renaissance, when European painters were developing increasingly naturalistic approaches to representation through the study of perspective and natural observation. This work belongs to the Early Renaissance, the transformative period in European art when painters first applied mathematical perspective, naturalistic figure modeling, and archaeological interest in antiquity to the inherited traditions of medieval devotional painting. The tension between Gothic grace and Renaissance structure gives art of this period a distinctive energy.

The procession of the Magi provides opportunities for elaborate costume rendering and varied portraiture, with the kneeling arrangement of the kings creating a diagonal compositional movement toward the Christ Child.