The Adoration of the Shepherds

Professor W.R. Rearick, loc. cit., was the first to recognize the present picture as an early work by Jacopo Bassano, dating it c. 1534, and commenting that it is the most interesting and characteristic example of the relationship between Titian and the young Jacopo. He points out that the present picture relies on Giovanni Brito's woodcut after Titian's picture of the same subject in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (Rearick, op. cit., fig. 237, and H.E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian, I, The Religious Paintings, London, 1969, pp. 117-8, no. 79, illustrated). In a letter of 22 February 1997, Rearick proposes a change of date for the present picture to c. 1533, comparing it to the Road to Calvary recently with Matthiesen Fine Art; he believes the present picture is 'probably the last important early Jacopo still in private hands.'