This Adoration of the Magi is almost certainly the partner piece to the Adoration of the Shepherds, from a private Italian collection, and which we had the chance to view at the exhibition held at the Prado Museum in 2009. In the first place, the dimensions are very similar. Furthermore, both present vertical strips of canvas of a similar width added to both sides of the canvas and another thinner one along the lower edge, which would confirm that they were formerly together. Secondly, in both we observe the same sort of gloomy, nocturnal atmospheres which, despite their open background spaces, present a chiaroscuro with tenebrist overtones, very reminiscent of the approach employed by Caravaggio himself, both in the final works from his Rome period and in those during his travels through the south of Italy. The intense chiaroscuro serves to model the main characters in a similar fashion. Maíno even turns to real-life models, for the Magi, the shepherds and for Saint Joseph himself. The Virgin and Infant Jesus, on the other hand, are two idealised models we can find exact replicas of in his later work.

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