Image: Manchester Art Gallery.

• Title(s): Adoration of the Infant Christ (after Perugio) (Manchester Art Gallery).
• Description: “A copy of an old master painting, at one quarter the original size, showing a group of five figures around a halo-bearing infant, all with hands expressing praise. The male and female figures to the left and right of the infant also have halos. In the centre ground on the right are a horned ?cow recumbent and a white ?mule behind it.”Scene depicting the Adoration of the Infant Christ, within arched canvas, taken from painting by Perugino. The baby Jesus lies on the ground in the centre of the picture with Mary to the right and Joseph to the left, both kneeling before the child with their arms folded and crossed in prayer. In the background to the centre and left the three shepherds kneel in similar attitude. Heavy wooden stable frame above, cow and donkey in a pen in the background to right. Hills extend in the distance to the left” (Manchester Art Gallery).
• Media: oil on canvas.
• Dimensions: framed: 75.2 x 106 cm, camvas 59.7 x 90.6 cm (Manchester Art Gallery). [Perugino’s original is 246 x 356 cm, four times Annie’s dimensions].
• Signature/date/other text: none.
• History:
  • Date? – No estimated date of creation.
  • 1934 – Bequeathed by Annie L. Swynnerton to Manchester Art Gallery (Manchester Art Gallery).
• Location: Manchester Art Gallery.

This is a copy of a painting by Pietro Vannucci (known as ‘Perugino’, 1446-1523).

The fresco, painted c. 1504, was originally in the entrance of the church of Saint Francis di Monteripido, Perugia, a city in central Italy, 80 miles/130 km north of Rome.

The entrance was demolished in 1863 but the fresco saved and is now in the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia, where it is called Adorazione dei Pastori (Adoration of the Shepherds).

Original fresco: Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria [dead link].

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Page last updated 8 May 2025.