(Venice 1548–1628)
The Adoration of the Shepherds,
oil on canvas, 65 x 84 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Mauro Lucco for confirming the attribution after examining the present painting in the original.

The present painting is a mature work by Palma il Giovane which Lucco has dated to circa 1610. It can be compared to the Adoration of the Magi in the Museo Sartorio, Trieste, also dated to circa 1610, in which the Virgin repeats a similar gesture with a raised right hand (see S. Mason Rinaldi, Palma il Giovane: l’opera completa, Milan 1984, cat. no. 316, fig. 415). The composition is similar to the Holy Family with Saint Catherine of Siena (circa 1615) conserved in the Pinacoteca dell’Accademia di Carrara, Bergamo (inv. no. 58AC00354).

Born into a family of artists which included his father, Antonio Palma (circa 1510–1575), his great-uncle Palma il Vecchio (1549–1628) and his uncle, Bonifacio de’ Pitati, called Bonifacio Veronese (1487–1553), Palma il Giovane enjoyed a long and illustrious career. His precocious talent was recognised by Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, who called the young painter to his court when he saw him in 1564, aged only fourteen, copying the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence by Titian. It is believed that he also travelled to Pesaro and then to Rome before returning to Venice in 1574, where he may have worked in the studio of Titian. After the death of Jacopo Tintoretto (1518–1594), Palma became one of the leading painters in Venice. Demonstrating the high reputation he enjoyed, he was commissioned to complete the Pietà left unfinished by Titian (Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice) upon which Palma proudly applied the inscription: ‘QUOD TITIANVS INCHOATVM RELIQUIT PALMA REVERENTVR ABSOLVIT DEOQ. DICAVIT OPVS’ [‘That which Titian left unfinished, Palma completed with reverence, dedicating the work to God’] – thereby evidently identifying himself as the heir to Titian’s artistic supremacy in the city.