Annunciation to the Shepherds: an angel tells shepherds tending their flocks that the Messiah has been born in a manger in Bethlehem. Romanesque stone capital circa 1190 AD at Benedictine Monasterio de San Juan de la Peña, near Jaca, Huesca, Aragon, Spain. The artwork is one of 20 Romanesque capitals in the monastery cloister by the same sculptor, known as The Master of San Juan de la Peña or Master of Agüero.
Monasterio de San Juan de la Peña, near Jaca, Huesca province, Aragon, Spain: shepherds tending their flocks in the countryside near Bethlehem are confronted by an angel announcing the birth of Jesus, in this detail of a stone cloister capital sculpted in about 1190 AD by an artist known as The Master of San Juan de la Peña or Master of Agüero. This Annunciation or Announcement to the Shepherds scene illustrates verses 8-20 of the second chapter of the New Testament Gospel of St Luke. It tells of the shepherds at first being terrified by the angelic apparition, but then reassured when the angel told them that the Messiah had been born in a manger in Bethlehem. They went to the town and found Mary and Joseph with the infant Jesus lying in a manger, as they had been told. The Adoration of the Shepherds that followed has long been a popular theme in Christian art. The sculpture is on one of 20 Old and New Testament Romanesque capitals, all by the same hand, that tell the Bible story from the Creation to Christ’s Ascension. They can be found in the cloistered courtyard, symbolising a New Jerusalem, of this ruined Benedictine monastery in the Central Pyrenees. The monastery was founded below a bulging rock overhang by hermit monks fleeing expansion of the Moorish territories in Spain. It stands on the Camino de Santiago or Way of St James Christian pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.
Size: 4256px × 2832px
Location: Monasterio de San Juan de la Peña, near Jaca, Huesca province, Aragon, Spain.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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