The Adoration of the Magi by Sandro Botticelli was created in ca. 1480. The painting is in National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. The size of the work is 68 x 102 cm and is made as an tempera and oil on poplar panel.
Sandro Botticelli, a Florentine, painted several versions of the theme of the Adoration of the Magi. The Magi, or wise men, were particularly venerated in Florence, as one of the city’s leading religious confraternities was dedicated to them. The members of the confraternity took part in pageants organized every five years, when the journey to Bethlehem of the Magi and their retinue, often numbering in the hundreds, was re-enacted through the streets of Florence. The Washington Adoration was probably painted in Rome. (Read more in National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)
About the Artist: Italian painter of the Early Renaissance Sandro Botticelli was born the city of Florence. From around 1461 or 1462 Botticelli was apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi. In 1472 Botticelli took on his first apprentice, the young Filippino Lippi, son of his master. Botticelli and Filippino’s works from these years, including many Madonna and Child paintings, are often difficult to distinguish from one another… Read more
