This recently restored work – Study for an Adoration of the Shepherds – had little documentation prior to its entrance into Masp Collection. Owing to the type and position of the figure, apparently deep in devout prayer, it may be assumed that the work is a study for a large scale composition such as The Adoration of the Shepherds. The style is almost a caricature of the mature genre of the painter and its impetuous execution with caking and swirling brushwork points to the fact that it owes less to late Caravaggian’s culture in Naples and more to the impact caused on Venetian’s pictorial culture by two periods in which Luca Giordano resided in Venice, 1652-1653 and 1667. It is also known that Giambattista Langetti (1621-1676) arrived there from Rome at the end of the 50s, and it is plausible that he made a stop in Naples. The influence that meeting these late naturalists, had on Venetian’s painters of the generation of Johann Carl Loth (1632-98) and Antonio Zanchi (1631-1722) seems to have left its mark in the Masp’s study. The work, in this case, would be dated from 1650-1680. According to another cogitation, kindly suggested by Dr. Rossella Vodret (verbal communication), the painter could belong to Poussin’s late circle of artists in Rome, which would not change significantly the dating.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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