One painter started this crowded scene. A different painter, years later, finished it. Both were Florentine friars, and neither treated the job as beneath a monk's calling.
What you're looking at
Painted between roughly 1440 and 1460, this large tondo shows the Adoration of the Magi: the three kings arriving to honor the newborn Christ, surrounded by a crowded procession of attendants, animals, and onlookers spilling across a rocky landscape. It's one of the most elaborate versions of this popular Renaissance subject.
Two friars, one painting
What makes this particular panel unusual is its authorship. It was begun by Fra Angelico, a Dominican friar celebrated for his devotional clarity and glowing color, and completed years later by Fra Filippo Lippi, a Carmelite friar known for livelier, more crowded, more worldly compositions. Rather than one artist finishing a single vision, this painting layers two different religious painters' styles into one panel, separated by a real gap in time.
That collaboration across years, rather than a single sitting, helps explain the painting's sheer density: dozens of figures, animals, and architectural details packed into a round format that neither painter alone might have filled quite so completely.
One detail to look for
Look for a shift in figure style as your eye moves around the circular composition. Areas with the softer, more serene faces typical of Fra Angelico sit alongside busier, more animated groupings that art historians associate with Lippi's later contribution.
See it at its real size
Our canvas print is labeled against the true size of the original, so what you're hanging is honestly scaled to the panel these two painters actually made. Shop the canvas print.