The Adoration of the Magi

The Art Fund launched an appeal to its members to raise money to purchase this painting. The appeal was supported by personal pleas from the director of the National Gallery, C G Holmes, Claude Philips and Campbell Dodgson. The painting depicts Mary presenting a fearful Christ Child to the Magi. This work is only one of two upright works by Pieter Bruegel and his earliest containing large-scale figures. The Art Fund Trustees recognised that no other painting like this by Bruegel was ever likely to become available to the National Gallery and this has proved true.