This Adoration of the Shepherds, signed and dated 1625, was executed in the final stage in Wtewael`s career. The intellectual approach to the scene (St Luke 2:15-18), which derives its emotive force from the refined rhythm of contrasting movements and lights, underlines the painter`s faithfulness to the Mannerist aesthetic he learned during his youth in Italy and France.

The compositional structure is based on a complex scheme of diagonals forming an X-shaped cross. The elegant contrapposto of the various figures steers the viewer`s gaze along the gently undulating line formed by the people surrounding the Christ Child: from the woman in the immediate foreground who climbs the steps up to the stable, to the wheel and the gear in the foreground on her left. This type of circular composition surrounding the main subject follows the compositional rules posited by the poet, treatise writer and painter Karel van Mander in Grondt der edel vry schilderconst (Principles of the Noble and Free Art of Painting) published in 1604. To the right of the baby Jesus, among the shepherds, is the ox, a symbol of Christianity, while the mule signifying Judaism has been displaced and is located behind the Virgin, eating and oblivious to the events. The intense sensation of dynamism created by the diagonals that run through the entire composition, its scant spatial depth, the slightly off -centre position of the main feature -the Christ Child- the changes of scale, the brilliant colours, the enamelled appearance of the surface, the muscular figures, the affected expressions of both humans and animals and the openings onto the exterior in the background architecture -through which the Annunciation to the shepherds is visible, the previous episode to the scene illustrated here -are stylistic devices characteristic of the Mannerism of the Haarlem school, to which Wtewael remained faithful until the end of his career. Indeed, certain iconographic motifs are taken from the engravings of Jan Baptist Collaert (1591-1627) (print no. 4 in the Vita, Passio et Resurrectio Jesu Christi series), the engravings of Jacob Matham (1571-1631) after paintings by Abraham Bloemaert (1564-1651), or even Marten de Vos (1532-1603). Even so, the presence of naturalist elements, coupled with a less idealised rendering of the models, bear witness to his desire to follow the new trail blazed by the Utrecht painters, who proposed mixing elements from the imagination (uyt den geest) with those from life (nae`t leven). Here the Italianate model of the Virgin, which Wtewael employs in his previous adorations of the shepherds, has been replaced by a more northern European type.

The X-radiograph and infrared reflectogram of the present Adoration of the Shepherds do not reveal any compositional changes or pentimenti. The work may therefore be an autograph replica of the original in Bologna that is signed and dated 1620, where the floor is paved. Lindemann (1929) mentions another replica in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Metz, although no record of it is found in the museum today (Posada Kubissa, T.: Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado. Catálogo razonado, 2009, pp. 321-322).