Adoration of the Shepherds

c. 1670

Adoration of the Shepherds, c. 1670. Carlo Dolci (Italian, 1616–1687). Oil on canvas; framed: 108 x 90.2 x 7.7 cm (42 1/2 x 35 1/2 x 3 1/16 in.); unframed: 88.6 x 70.5 cm (34 7/8 x 27 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1968.22 The historical significance of the Baroque painter Carlo Dolci, a precocious artist whose skill was recognized early by the leading Florentine patrons of his time, is often diminished due to his traditionalist compositions. Having gained local reputation as a talented portraitist and painter of religious narrative, Dolci's anti-Mannerist technique dismissed many of the leading Baroque trends as superfluous, retaining an unobtrusive and placid style in the manner of those before him. Having been a devout follower of the brotherhood of St. Benedict, Dolci draws upon a strict Christian iconography in his depiction of the shepherds' witness account of the birth of Christ. --Charles Eppley (January 2009)