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Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Adoration of the Magi, 1564
The figures are large and stand close. Mary holds the child, who shrinks back from the gift. The two older kings are haggard old men; the third, in a white cloak, waits at the right with a strange vessel. Behind them soldiers crowd in.
The panel is signed and dated 1564. Bruegel, who usually spreads small figures over a wide landscape, here fills a tall format with a few large ones. Nobody in the picture is beautiful and hardly anyone is devout; the crowd stares at the gold.
A man whispers into Joseph's ear, and Joseph listens.
The third king's gift: a small golden ship that carries a shell.
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