Adoration of the Christ Child

This large, arch-topped wooden panel is very similar in subject and dimensions to another in the Johnson Collection in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Di Zanobi began his career in the circle of Filippo Lippi (1406 – 1469) and Pesellino (1422 – 1457), two of the leading artists in fifteenth-century Tuscany. Between 1460 and the mid-1480s, he carried out major commissions for altarpieces in the Italian cities of Prato and Florence.

The subject of the Adoration of the newborn Christ Child, who is wrapped tightly in swaddling clothes, is based on the Franciscan late thirteenth-century Meditations on the Life of Christ:

Unable to contain herself, the mother stooped to pick Him up, embraced Him tenderly…when this was done, she wrapped Him in the veil from her head and laid Him in the manger. The ox and ass knelt with their mouths above the manger and breathed on the Infant as though they possessed reason and knew that the Child was so poorly wrapped that he needed to be warmed, in that cold season. The mother also knelt to adore Him and to render thanks to God…Joseph adored Him likewise.