1590
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Adoration of the Magi is a 1590 by Maerten de Vos, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see Mary and baby Jesus surrounded by three kings, Joseph, and a crowd of onlookers. The kings kneel, offering fancy gifts in ornate containers—one looks like a seashell cup, another like a coconut. This painting was actually a design for a print, not meant to hang on a wall. The tight crop makes the scene feel intimate, almost like a snapshot. The gifts reflect the kind of rare, expensive items wealthy people in Antwerp collected at the time. To see how other artists handled the same scene, look up *south netherlands, 16th century*.
The drawing is a print design made to be translated to a copperplate in the city of Antwerp in the late 16th century. De Vos’s closely cropped composition brings the three magi as well as Joseph into close contact with the seated Virgin and Child. The elaborate vessels carried by the magi, including a footed nautilus cup, a silver dish, and what could be a coconut cup, are the types of exotic treasures that would have been collected by Antwerp’s wealthy inhabitants signifying their contact with foreign lands. The magi furthest back is portrayed as African, a not uncommon but by no means…
In this depiction of the adoration of the magi, the magi furthest back is portrayed as African, a not uncommon but by no means universal 16th-century interpretation of the magi’s origins.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Maerten de Vos, Maerten de Vos the Elder or Marten de Vos (1532 – 4 December 1603) was a Flemish painter, known mainly for his history and allegorical paintings and portraits.
See the richer artist page
