Name of Object:

Adoration of the Shepherds

Location:

Governor’s Palace, Brno, Moravia, Czech Republic

Holding Museum:

Moravian Gallery, Brno

Current Owner:

Art Museum, Olomouc

Date of Object:

1757

Artist(s) / Craftsperson(s):

Martin Johann Schmidt (Kremser-Schmidt)  (1718, Grafenwörth-1801, Stein an der Donau)

Museum Inventory Number:

O 149

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Oil on canvas

Dimensions:

H: 80 cm; w: 110 cm

Provenance:

Municipal Museum, Olomouc

Type of object:

Painting

Place of production:

Stein an der Donau, Austria

Description:

The New Testament account of the shepherds' adoration of the infant Jesus is rendered as a genre picture. The landscape setting is not typical of Kremser-Schmidt's oeuvre which predominantly comprised sizeable altarpieces. The artist reduced the scene to primary figures and their attributes and based the picture on atmospheric use of colour and light. A contrasting motif of a forked tree receding into a dark cloud separates the main scene from the background. The light appears to emanate from within the picture itself, from the infant Jesus, and is reflected on the hay in the barn and tools in the foreground. These motifs are reminiscent of 17th-century Dutch painting, something that Kremser-Schmidt focused upon unlike his contemporaries. His interest in chiaroscuro and the relaxed brushstrokes pay tribute to Rembrandt's painting style. The colour scheme is, however, original. The scale of brown tones illuminated with various hues of golden ochre are offset by Mary's blue robe and accents of vermilion in the detail. The palette is complemented by a grey-blue background with light effects.
The picture is one of only a few known examples of the artist's early work, that often appears to be inspired by northern Italian painting, and which he probably saw either during a journey to Venice in 1746 or through prints brought back from there for him. He later settled in Stein near Krems, and sent his paintings to Lower Austria, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. In the last quarter of the 18th century his paintings were distributed in Moravia (Vranov, Bratrušov). His student, Franz Oesterreicher, worked in Jihlava. Schmidt's oeuvre spanned changes in style from the late baroque to classicism and this was accompanied by an extension of thematic scale: portrait, genre painting and ancient mythology.

The shepherds’ adoration of the infant Jesus is rendered as a genre picture. The landscape setting is not typical of Kremser-Schmidt, whose work largely comprised altarpieces for the Habsburgian lands. The painter reduced the scene to primary figures and based the picture on the atmospheric use of colour and light.

How date and origin were established:

The picture was determined as a work by Kremser-Schmidt on the basis of a style analysis by Ivo Krsek.

How Object was obtained:

The picture comes from the former Municipal Museum in Olomouc. Its original provenance is unknown.

Selected bibliography:

Ivo Krsek, Ivo Krsek, Beitrag zum Werk Martin Johann Schmidts (Kremser-Schmidt), Sborník prací filozofické fakulty brněnské univerzity, F 10, 1966, pp. 51–52.
Rupert Feuchtmüller, Der Kremser-Schmidt, Innsbruck–­­Wien, 1989, pp. 54, 377, WV 137.
Michael Grünwald, Kam mit der Weinfuhr von Krems auch ein 20 Schuch langes und 10 Schuch hohes Bild an...Der Maler Martin Johann Schmidt (1718–1801) und seine Kunsttransporte, in Friedrich Polleroß (ed), Reiselust & Kunstgenuss. Barockes Böhmen, Mähren und Österreich, Petersberg, 2004, p. 179.

Citation of this web page:

Zora Wörgötter " Adoration of the Shepherds" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;BAR;cz;Mus11_B;43;en

Prepared by: Zora WörgötterZora Wörgötter

SURNAME: Wörgötter
NAME: Zora

AFFILIATION: Moravian Gallery in Brno

TITLE: Museum Curator and Local Co-ordinator

CV:
Zora Wörgötter studied Applied Painting at the Secondary School of Applied Arts, Video Art (Faculty of Fine Arts) at the University of Technology in Brno and Art History and Ethnology (Faculty of Arts) at Masaryk University, Brno. She has worked at the Moravian Gallery since 1997 and was curator of the Ancient Art Collection up until 2008. Specialising in Dutch and Central European painting of the 17th and 18th centuries, she has participated in the preparation of several exhibitions, catalogues and research projects in the Czech Republic and abroad, and published in the Moravian Gallery Bulletin, Opuscula historiae artium, and other journals. She is co-ordinator of the Art History Database www.ahice.net for the Czech Republic.
Copyedited by: Jiří KroupaJiří Kroupa

SURNAME: Kroupa
NAME: Jiří

AFFILIATION: Department of the History of Art (Faculty of Arts) Masaryk
University, Brno

TITLE: Professor

CV:
Professor Jiří Kroupa studied Art History, History and Sociology Masaryk University, Brno. He was a curator at the Kroměříž Museum and the Moravian Gallery in Brno before joining the staff at Masaryk University in 1988 (Head of the Department 1992–2002; Professor 1999 to present). His particular fields of interest are in the history of architecture, 18th-century cultural history and the methodology of art history. His long list of publications includes an edition on the architect Franz Anton Grimm and an essay “The alchemy of happiness: the Enlightenment in the Moravian context”. He was contributing editor for the volume Dans le miroir des ombres. Moravie a la age baroque. 1670–1790 (2002).
Translation by: Irma Charvátová
Translation copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: CZ 44