The Adoration of the Shepherds (Primary Title)
Paolo de Matteis, Italian, 1662 - 1728 (Artist)
Paolo de Matteis is principally remembered as a pupil of the famous Neapolitan artist Luca Giordano, whose painting of St. Paul the Hermit hangs in this gallery. Through additional training in Rome, Paolo also acquired a knowledge of the works of earlier Roman Baroque artists such as Domenichino and Guido Reni.
De Matteis painted this canvas and its companion depiction of the Annunciation (now in the St. Louis Art Museum) for a famous Neapolitan patroness of the arts, the Duchess of Laurenzano. De Matteis’s eclectic art, with its echoes, here, of Correggio’s famous 16th-century night scene of the Nativity and of Guido Reni’s refined devotional art of the 17th century, found favor at this cultured court.
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