Vincenzo Foppa, 'The Adoration of the Kings', perhaps about 1500

The Adoration of the Kings

Vincenzo Foppa

Not on display

About the work

Overview

At the end of their long journey, three magnificently dressed kings offer gifts to the Christ Child, who is seated on the Virgin’s lap. Behind them, their retinue winds its way through the hilly landscape from Jerusalem, visible on a distant hilltop. This is the Adoration of the Kings (Matthew 2: 11), when three kings followed a star from the East to find the infant Christ in a stable in Bethlehem.

This altarpiece is the largest and most impressive of the National Gallery’s collection of paintings made in Lombardy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The scene is carefully structured to focus attention on the gifts and Christ, but anecdotal details bring the procession to life. At the back, two men – one wears a furry cap, the other a hood – hold falcons. On the right, a young page on a grey horse has stuck his feet into the stirrup leathers as he can't reach the stirrups.

In-depth

At the end of their long journey, three kings offer gifts to the Christ Child, who is seated on the Virgin Mary’s lap. Their retinue winds its way through the hilly landscape from Jerusalem, visible on a distant hilltop. The kings‘ gorgeous clothes, gleaming golden crowns and expensive gifts make a vivid contrast with the crumbling walls and ruined roof of the stable which houses the holy family.

This is the Adoration of the Kings, although it’s not first-century Palestine we see. The stable is a crumbling classical temple, perhaps symbolising the pagan religion which Christianity replaced, and the rolling hills and towns are those of Renaissance Europe. Anecdotal details bring the procession to life. At the back of the crowd, two men – one wears a furry cap, the other a hood – have falcons on their wrists. On the right, a young page on a grey horse has stuck his feet into the stirrup leathers as he can’t reach the stirrups.

This altarpiece is the largest and most impressive of the National Gallery’s exceptional collection of paintings made in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Lombardy, which includes works by Cima da Conegliano, Andrea Solario and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio. We don't know where or when it was made, or who for, but the design and the sumptuous decoration recall works by Gentile da Fabriano and Jacopo Bellini then to be seen in Brescia. Many elements derive from da Fabriano’s famous Adoration, made in 1423 for the Strozzi chapel in Florence, or perhaps from an earlier version painted by him for the Chapel of the Broletto, Brescia.

But Vincenzo Foppa was also clearly aware of the latest developments in Netherlandish painting. The whole scene is carefully structured to focus attention on the gifts and Christ, with strong verticals formed by the standing king and grey horse on the right and the upright figure of the Virgin on the left, extended upwards by the pillar behind her. A series of right-hand curves are made by the back of the king who kneels, the king behind him with the red cloak and the hill above them. These are echoed by the curve of the grey horse’s neck and balanced by the curve of the arch in the centre. Recession is suggested by the diminishing hilltop buildings and the zigzagging road, but also by the gradual fading of colour. Strong blues and reds are used in the foreground, with soft greens and browns for the landscape, fading eventually to distant blue hills. Ruined architecture, sumptuous outfits and a geometrical construction also feature in Netherlandish paintings of the subject, such as Jean Gossart’s later Adoration of the Kings.

Technical investigation has told us a lot about the flexibility of Foppa’s techniques, and the variety of his methods. Some figures he drew freehand, but he also used pounced cartoons for many of the heads. The picture is executed in both oil and egg tempera. Some gilded areas – the crowns, collars and gifts – are built up in pastiglia covered with burnished gold.

Originally the painting would have been even more colourful. The Virgin’s cloak would have been bright blue but it has lost its upper layer of ultramarine pigment. Some of the faces have taken on a silvery-grey tint as the red lake pigment has faded.

Key facts

Details

Full title: The Adoration of the Kings
Artist: Vincenzo Foppa
Artist dates: active 1456 - 1515/16
Date made: perhaps about 1500
Medium and support: oil on wood
Dimensions: 238.8 × 210.8 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1863
Inventory number: NG729
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection

Provenance

In the collection of Cardinal Fesch in France, then (from 1815) at Rome; 1841 Catalogue, No. 1295; Sale, 1845, lot 875, bought by Bromley. Purchased at the Rev. Walter Davenport Bromley Sale, London, 13 June, 1863 (lot 155).

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Martin Davies, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Bibliography

1841

Catalogue des tableaux composant la galerie de feu son eminence le Cardinal Fesch, Rome 1841
1845

George, Galerie de feu S.E. le Cardinal Fesch, ancien archevêque de Lyon, primat des Gaules, etc., etc., ou catalogue raisonné des tableaux de cette galerie, accompagné de notices historiques et analytiques, Rome, 17 March 1845 - 18 March 1845
1854

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
1863

Christie, Manson & Woods, Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of Pictures of the Rev. Walter Davenport Bromley, London, 12 June 1863
1864

National Gallery, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery: Foreign Schools, London 1864
1871

J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in North Italy: Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Ferrara, Milan, Friuli, Brescia, from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century, 2 vols, London 1871
1874

F. Kugler, Handbook of Painting: The Italian Schools, ed. E. Eastlake, 4th edn, London 1874
1881

National Gallery, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery: Foreign Schools, London 1881
1886

National Gallery, The Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery…foreign Schools, London 1886
1887

F. Kugler, Handbook of Painting: The Italian Schools, eds C.L. Eastlake and A.H. Layard, 5th edn, London 1887
1909

C.J. Ffoulkes and R. Maiocchi, Vincenzo Foppa of Brescia, Founder of the Lombard School, His Life and Work, London 1909
1938

K.T. Parker, 'Vincenzo Foppa, "The Justice of Trajan", Oxford, Ashmolean Museum', Old Master Drawings, XIII, 1938, pp. 6-8
1948

A.M. Hind, Early Italian Engraving, London 1948
1949

F. Wittgens, Vincenzo Foppa, Milan 1949
1951

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, London 1951
1961

M. Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd edn, London 1961
1986

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, revised edn, London 1986
1996

M.G. Balzarini, Vincenzo Foppa: La formazione e l'attività giovanile, Florence 1996
1997

M.G. Balzarini, Vincenzo Foppa, Milan 1997
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2001

J. Dunkerton and C. Plazzotta, 'Vincenzo Foppa's "Adoration of the Kings"', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XXII, 2001, pp. 18-28
2002

G. Agosti, M. Natale and G. Romano, Vincenzo Foppa: Un protagonista del Rinascimento (exh. cat. Museo della Città, Santo Giulia, 3 March - 2 June 2002), Milan 2002
2002

D. Bomford et al., Underdrawings in Renaissance Paintings (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 30 October 2002 - 16 February 2003), London 2002
2002

J. Dunkerton and C. Plazzotta, 'L'Adorazione dei Magi di Vincenzo Foppa', in Vincenzo Foppa. Technice d'esecuzione, indagini e restauri. Atti del Seminario internazionale di Studi, Milan 2002, pp. 147-55

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.