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The Adoration of the Shepherds is an oil-on-panel painting by Italian Renaissance artist Giorgione, completed around 1505 to 1510. It depicts a common subject in the nativity of Jesus in art. The scene, based on the Biblical account in Luke 2, depicts shepherds visiting the stable to celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.
Giorgione portrayed the main characters on the right, with Saint Joseph, the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child shown in front of a dark grotto, while on the left is a bright landscape with trees, buildings and distant hills. At one time, the work was owned by the department-store magnate Samuel Henry Kress, who displayed it in the window of his Fifth Avenue store in New York City over the Christmas period in 1938. The picture was part of a donation made by the Kress Foundation to the newly established National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1941, where it remains to this day.Painting credit: Giorgione