Adoration of the Child with Saint Joseph, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Jerome

Italian (Florentine School), 1439–1507
c. 1465
Tempera painting on lindenwood panel
Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Cosimo Rosselli was from a prominent Florentine family, and the artist enjoyed patronage from prominent figures in his lifetime, including that of Pope Sixtus IV. In 1481, Rosselli even helped decorate the Sistine Chapel (familiar for Michelangelo later painting his one of his most famous masterpieces on the ceiling) alongside great artists like Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio. Although Adoration of the Child depicts the nativity of Christ, Rosselli included symbolic references to Christ’s death, including the presence of St. Jerome, who witnessed Christ’s Passion – the final period of his life - in a vision. The inclusion of an adult St. John the Baptist (the leftmost figure with long, brown hair) may seem strange, but this choice by Rosselli was probably based on an apocryphal account of an adult St. John in the desert receiving a vision of the infant Christ.