The Adoration of the Shepherds

Artist Jacob Jordaens Flemish, 1593–1678

Date1657

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions106 1/4 x 81 in. (269.9 x 205.7 cm)
Frame: 111 1/2 x 85 1/2 in. (283.2 x 217.2 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of John Motley Morehead

Object numberG.55.7.1

On View

Not on view

ProvenanceCreated Flanders [present day Belgium], 1657. Joan Alexander van Susteren (1728–1764), Heer van s’Gravenwezel, Flanders; [his sale, Antwerp, June 26, 1764, no. 12, as The Birth of Christ]; Bruyninks. Possibly Victor Albert Francis Charles Spencer, 1st Viscount Churchill (1864–1934); Verena Maud (née Lowther), Viscountess Churchill (1865–1938). [Alfred Scharf, London, by 1939]; Robert Franck, London, after 1945; [Julius Weitzner, New York]; sold to NCMA, 1955 [1].

[1]. Purchased with funds provided by John Motley Morehead III (1870–1965), Rye, New York.
Published References“Catalogue der Schilderyen naergelaeten by wylen Joncker Joan Alexander van Susteren, heere van s’Gravenwesel” (auction catalogue) (Antwerp, June 26, 1764), lot 12, as The Birth of Christ (de Geborte Christi).

P[ieter] Terwesten, Catalogus von Schilderyen, Vol. 3 (The Hague: 1770), cat. no. 6, p. 371.

M. Rooses, Jordaens' Leven en Werken (Antwerp: 1906), 206.

Leo Van Puyvelde, Jordaens (Paris: Elsevier, 1953), cat. no. 43, illus.

R[oger] -A[dolf] d'. Hulst,De Tekeningen van Jacob Jordaens (Brussels: 1956), 270, 360, under cat. no. 97.

W. R. Valentiner, Catalogue of Paintings: Including Three Sets of Tapestries (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1956), no. 120, illus. (b-w).

M. Fryns, Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens (Brussels: 1966), illus. pl. 78.

Michael Jaffé, Jacob Jordaens, 1593-1678 (exhibition catalogue) (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1968), cat. no. 110, illus. (see also cat. no. 254, illus. 378, for preparation study).

E. Haverkamp-Begemann and Anne-Marie S. Logan, European Drawings and Watercolors in the Yale University Art Gallery, 1500-1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), 314, illus. (detail) fig. 67.

R[oger] -A[dolf] d'. Hulst,Jordaens Drawings, Vol. 2 (London: Phaidon Press, 1974), 394-96.

Georgette Dargent, "Jordaens (Anvers 1593-1678)," Bulletin of Musées et Monuments Lyonnais 6, no. 4 (1979), 302-306, illus. 304, fig. 11.

R[oger] -A[dolf] d'. Hulst,Jacob Jordaens, (Dutch transl. by P. S. Falla) (London: Sotheby Publications, 1982), cat. no. 216, illus. 247.

Edgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, by The University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus. (b-w) 141.

Tarheel Banker 68, no. 6 (December 1989), 1, illus. (color) cover.

Hans Buijs and Maria van Berge-Gerbaud, Collections flamandes et hollandaises des Musées de Province: Tableaux Flamands et Hollandais: du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (Paris: Institut Neerlandais, 1991), 80-83, illus. fig. 27a.

Introduction to the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1992), illus. (b-w) 121.

Guy C. Bauman and Walter A. Liedtke, selected by, Flemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America, Arnout Balis, Carl Van de Velde and Hans Vlieghe, eds., Flandria Extra Muros series (Antwerp: Fonds Mercator, 1992), 344, illus. fig. 295.

Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Flandre et Hollande au Siècle d'Or: Chefs-d'oeuvre des Musées de Rhône Alpes. April 25-July 12, 1992; Bourg en Bresse, Musée de Brou, April 25-September 20, 1992; Roanne, Musée Déchelette, April 25-September 20, 1992, p 170. (Catalogue only, not in show.)

Ben Broos, Intimacies & Intrigue: History Painting in the Mauritshuis (The Hague: Mauritshuis, and Ghent: Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, 1993), mentioned 158.

Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678). March 27-June 27, 1993, catalogue by R. -A. d'Hulst, Nora de Poorter and Marc Vandenven (Antwerp: Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten), 16. (Catalogue only, not in show.)

Dennis Weller, entry for The Adoration of the Shepherds, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, Rebecca Martin Nagy, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1998), 95, illus. (color).

Jo Woestendiek, "What Child is This?", Winston-Salem, NC: Prime Times (November 15, 2000), discussed briefly 11, illus. 10.

Ann Sutherland Harris, Seventeenth-Century Art & Architecture (London: Laurence King Publishing, 2005), discussed 185-86, illus. (b-w) 186, fig. 2.52.

Dennis P. Weller, Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings [Systematic Catalogue of the Collection] (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2009), cat. no. 57, illus. (color) 272, also mentioned xii.

Dennis P. Weller, entry for The Adoration of the Shepherds, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), 188, illus. (color) 189.
Exhibition HistoryOttawa, Canada, National Gallery of Canada, “Jacob Jordaens, 1593-1678,” November 29, 1968-January 5, 1969, cat. no. 110, illus.
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