Gerard de la Vallée
1596/1597 – after 1667

Adoration of the Shepherds
Oil on copper, cm 55 x 44

Gerard de la Vallée, probably born in Antwerp, was a Flemish painter of history and landscape paintings.
This work derives, but with some variations, from the Adoration of the Shepherds painted by Peter Paul Rubens in 1619 and now conserved at the Museum of Fine Arts in Marseille. The painting, which had been commissioned to Rubens for the church of Saint-Jean de Malines, Belgium, was stolen in 1794 by the French and taken to the Louvre Museum, where it remained until 1803 when it was sold to the Museum of Fine Arts in Marseille. Rubens’ invention was very successful, also thanks to the engraving made by Lucas Vorsterman I (1595-1675), and many were the artists who replicated the invention.