PROVENANCE: : Charles Brinsley Marlay; his bequest to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Julius Weitzner, London, 1957; BJU, 1959.

Hans von Aachen probably initially trained with the portrait painter Georg Jerrigh until he journeyed to Italy in 1574. He worked first in Venice, mostly copying paintings by the Venetian masters, until he moved to Rome the next year. There he continued to learn from the past by copying the Italian masters and antique sculptures. A commission for an altarpiece by the Church of Il Gesu in Rome launched a successful career that brought him to numerous cities and courts in Italy and Germany . He ultimately became court painter (and later a knight) to Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, a prestigious position that allowed him to continue his travels while acting as art agent, diplomat, and envoy for the emperor.

This charming cabinet picture of The Adoration of the Shepherds displays the coloration, elongation of forms, compositional busyness, and stylistic characteristics of the mannerist painters at the court of Rudolf II, of which von Aachen was the most important practitioner. The influence of his stay in Italy is readily apparent in the painting, which betrays knowledge of the work of Correggio and Veronese. The woman in the foreground holding a child with her back to the viewer is a typical compositional device used by the artist.