Adoration of the Shepherds

This large plaque is inscribed with the initials IDC, thought to refer to Jean de Court, a late sixteenth-to early seventeenth-century enameler. This masterpiece reproduces Agnolo Bronzino’s Adoration of the Shepherds, a painting executed in 1530–40 for a Florentine patron and known in France through prints. In fact, the enameler copied almost exactly an engraving after the painting by Giorgio Ghisi. Ghisi reversed the original composition and added Latin inscriptions, the two birds on the roof of the manger, the extensive architecture of Bethlehem in the background, and the mannerist rendering of the figures (most noticeable in the muscular back of the crouching shepherd in the foreground).

Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.

Charles Mannheim, Paris. J. Pierpont Morgan, London and New York. Duveen. Frick, 1916.

Source: Enamels, Rugs and Silver in The Frick Collection. Volume VIII. New York: The Frick Collection, 1977.