Picture 4 / 4
The Birth of Christ
Georges de La Tour, The Adoration of the Shepherds, c. 1644
- Painter
- Georges de La Tour
- Collection
- Musée du Louvre, Paris
- Scripture
- Luke 2:16
- Published
- 4 October 2026
- Image
- Wikimedia Commons, public domain ↗
.jpg){kind=link}
Five people stand close around the sleeping child, and nobody speaks. Joseph shields a candle with his hand. A lamb stretches its head in between and nibbles at the straw.
La Tour worked in Lunéville in Lorraine. He was forgotten after his death and rediscovered only in the twentieth century; the Louvre acquired this picture in 1926. His night pieces are quiet where Caravaggio's are loud.
Joseph's hand hides the flame. We see only what it lights.
The lamb pushes its head in between the adults and reaches furthest forward of all.