Workshop of Giovanni Bellini, 'The Adoration of the Kings', about 1475-80

In order to meet the huge demand for his paintings, Giovanni Bellini had a large workshop of assistants who produced works in his style, under his supervision. This one shows the Three Kings (sometimes called wise men, or magi) worshipping the infant Christ. According to the Gospel of Matthew, a star – which is visible in the sky above Christ here – guided them from their land to Bethlehem, where Christ was born.

This picture is as much a landscape as it is a narrative painting; landscape had become a key part of Bellini’s painting at around this date. The broad view incorporates craggy outcrops to the left and small hills to the right, circled by snaking town walls. In the middle of the valley is a sea or lake enclosed by snowy mountains in the far distance. According to the Gospels Christ was born in a stable, which is here shown as a grotto within one of the outcrops. As was common in Bellini’s pictures, the natural features enhance the story: the expansive landscape has space for the long line of the kings‘ entourages, descending down the hillside path towards the holy family. Andrea Mantegna used the landscape setting in this way in The Agony in the Garden, where we see an army of Roman soldiers descending from a city perched on the top of a distant hill.

This interpretation of the biblical story is novel. It recalls the large-scale history paintings made by Giovanni’s brother, Gentile – they commemorated significant events in contemporary Venetian life and feature a large number of figures painted on a small scale, as here. The kings were from ’the east', which meant that painters could depict them wearing outfits that they associated with cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Many here wear white turbans, similar to that worn by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II in Gentile’s portrait of him, made when the artist was in Istanbul in the early 1480s. The kings are distinguished by their ornate clothing, perhaps inspired by Gentile’s travels. Those shown kneeling wear colourful robes woven with golden thread, while the one standing at the back wears black robes – black was an expensive fabric in the fifteenth century. The paint surface is considerably worn but the head of the king kneeling at the front is the best preserved part of the picture.