Adoration of the Shepherds 1554 - 1627

Curator: Immediately, what strikes me is the raw quality, the sketched essence of a sacred scene, but something about it feels like a dream remembered rather than an observed moment. Editor: Here we have Giovanni Battista Paggi’s, "Adoration of the Shepherds" created between 1554 and 1627. Crafted with charcoal, etching and drawing techniques, it’s currently held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Curator: It has a feeling like faded tapestry or perhaps a fragile page pulled from an ancient book. Tell me more, what layers of historical consciousness does this work bring to mind for you? Editor: Well, Adoration scenes have been ubiquitous, and it has roots that twist deep. For instance, dogs appear frequently in artistic depictions of the Adoration and, over time, acquired a certain symbolic value. The presence of a dog is to remind one that this scene is being rendered by someone faithful. Curator: I’m captivated by that subtle fidelity baked right in. This version feels different – it has this nervous, almost hesitant line, as if Paggi is both revealing and concealing. Editor: Consider, too, the dog down near the base of the page and how that evokes more everyday, familial warmth rather than theological interpretations, almost making the sacred approachable and mirroring this contrast with a lonely man traversing a faraway hilltop. Curator: Absolutely. In that far away figure there are reverberations of exile or solitude; that Paggi intertwines joy with this starker reality speaks to the human condition itself. It is beautiful! Editor: Indeed. Even the medium—the etching—implies reproduction and wide distribution. Here, faith wasn't just beheld but made shareable. Curator: To view "Adoration of the Shepherds" is to glimpse the past not as fixed but continually reimagined and interpreted and that is what Paggi gifts the contemporary viewer, so many years later. Editor: Agreed. Paggi's vision, preserved, encourages reflection, bridging not only earth and divine but past and present. It sparks a deep and meaningful connection.