The Adoration of the Shepherds

The production of paintings on stone supports flourished in the late sixteenth century, most notably in Florence and Rome where painter, draughtsman and engraver Antonio Tempesta was working around 1600. A reference to the Venetian Sebastiano del Piombo painting on stone is recorded as early as 1530. Early examples were painted on marble and slate, but as trade routes developed, more types of stone became available, including lapis lazuli, alabaster, onyx, jasper, agate, and amethyst. Painters used these supports to attain a high level of finish, and capitalised on the natural contours and colours offered by the stone to guide and enhance their compositions. The deep ultramarine of lapis lazuli provided a naturally luminous backdrop, enhancing both the rarity of the material and the virtuosity of the artist’s brushwork.

Paintings on stone were clearly prized, and examples are recorded in the inventories of the most distinguished collecting dynasties across western Europe, including the Medici, Colonna and Savoy families. A seminal exhibition on this subject was held at the Saint Louis Art Museum in 2022 (Paintings on Stone: Science and the Sacred 1530-1800, 20 February-15 May 2022, curated by Judith W. Mann).

The present painting is distinctive for its dramatically wide oval format and may originally have been set into a piece of furniture. Perhaps the most closely comparable examples by Tempesta are a pair of paintings in a private Milanese collection, The Finding of Moses and Moses turning the Nile to Blood (see A.G. De Marchi, in Pietra Dipinta. Tesori nascosti del '500 e del '600 da una collezione privata milanese, exhibition catalogue, Milan, 2000, p. 100, no. 52). Another similar painting, The Calling of Saint Peter, was sold in these Rooms on 8 December 2006, lot 210 (fig. 1).