German school; c. 1600.

German school; c. 1600.
"Adoration of the Three Wise Men" -
Paper glued to board.
Presents labels on the back.
Measurements. 30,5 x 22,5 cm:
This painting is inscribed within the Central European pictorial tradition of the late Renaissance, in which echoes of late Gothic still converge with the innovations of Italian and Flemish Renaissance painting. The scene, one of the most recurrent in the Christian repertoire, is developed with narrative richness: the Kings, dressed in sumptuous costumes that allow the painter to display his virtuosity in the treatment of fabrics, embroidery and metals, approach the Child Jesus with reverence, presented by the Virgin under the shelter of a modest architecture. Saint Joseph appears in a secondary attitude, while a retinue of servants and knights fills the scene, accompanied by horses.
The visual treatment is characterized by the meticulousness of detail, a distinctive feature of the German school around 1600. The precision in the description of the objects and the chromatic intensity with deep reds, saturated blues and bright golds, evidence the heritage of Flemish painting, while the spatial organization and monumentality of the figures reveal the assimilation of Italian models. It is a work that combines devotion with visual delectation, in which the spiritual is elevated through the materially splendid.
The German School of this period stands out for its capacity for synthesis: it knew how to integrate the severity of the Gothic tradition with Renaissance elegance and proportion, generating works that combine compositional rigor with a marked expressive character. Although he did not always achieve the international influence of the Italian or Flemish schools, he managed to develop his own language, of great quality, which responded to the religious and cultural sensibility of the Germanic sphere.
The relevance of the theme of the Adoration of the Magi in Western painting is indisputable. Beyond the Gospel anecdote, the scene embodies the universality of the Christian message: three kings, representatives of the continents known at the time, prostrate themselves before the infant Christ, acknowledging his divinity and symbolizing the conversion of peoples to Christianity. In the context of the 17th century, the iconography also served as an affirmation of the power of the faith and the legitimacy of the Church in the face of the challenges of the Reformation. Moreover, the subject provided the painter with a privileged opportunity to display luxury, exoticism and narrative drama, which explains its enormous diffusion in altarpieces and devotional paintings.