Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1510): Art, History and Details

Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1510) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Hans Leonhard Schäufelein (German, 1480–1540).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The artist has set Christ's birth in a ruined stable, witnessed by shepherds and angels. The candle Joseph holds symbolizes the supremacy of Christ's divine radiance over earthly light. Beyond the overgrown arch of the dilapidated structure an angel announces Christ's birth to shepherds in the field. Schäufelein based his picture on the Paumgartner Nativity, a painting (now preserved in Munich) by his teacher, Albrecht Dürer. Schäufelein was born in Nuremberg, probably studied under Wohlgemut, and then became the assistant of Dürer, whose style he imitated.

Object facts

• Title: Adoration of the Shepherds
• Date: c. 1510
• Creator attribution: Hans Leonhard Schäufelein (German, 1480–1540)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on wood
• Dimensions: Framed: 86 x 85.5 x 4 cm (33 7/8 x 33 11/16 x 1 9/16 in.); Unframed: 58 x 56.6 cm (22 13/16 x 22 5/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Renaissance
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.807

Collection credit

Holden Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Rubinstein-Bloch, Stella. Catalogue of a Collection of Paintings, Etc. Presented by Mrs. Liberty E. Holden to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1917.
• G. U. "The Holden Collection." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 2 (1917): 19-34.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.