Adoration of the Magi

Common card · No. 259793

The Adoration of the Magi — also known as the Adoration of the Kings or the Visitation of the Wise Men — is the name traditionally given to a popular subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art. In these depictions, three Magi (traditionally represented as kings, especially in the West), having found Jesus by following a star, lay before him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and worship him. The scene originates from the Biblical account in Matthew 2:11: "On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another path". Christian iconography considerably expanded the bare account of the Biblical Magi described in the Gospel of Matthew (2:1–22). By the later Middle Ages this drew from non-canonical sources like the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Gerard David, Public domain