Advent Calendar 2021

25. Adoration of the Shepherds

A life-size oil painting of the Adoration of the Shepherds (Luke 2:15–20) hung above the fireplace in Glencairn’s Upper Hall for many years. The painting was based on an illustration in The Christ Child, a children’s book by Maud and Miska Petersham. The Petershams, a husband-and-wife team, were well known in the first half of the 20th century as illustrators and authors of children’s literature. Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn loved the Petershams’ illustrations, and in the late 1930s they commissioned artist Frank Snyder to paint the large interpretation of the illustration from The Christ Child for their Bryn Athyn home. 

When Glencairn became a museum in the early 1980s, Snyder’s original painting from the 1930s was found to be damaged beyond repair. In 2016 a reinterpretation of the Petersham illustration was painted by Bryn Athyn artist Edwin Herder, which now hangs above Glencairn’s fireplace each Christmas season. 

Visit us at Follow the Star: A 2021 Advent Calendar.