Albrecht Altdorfer  (c. 1480 – 1538) ,

was a German painter, engraver and architect of the Renaissance working in Regensburg, Bavaria. Along with Lucas Cranach the Elder and Wolf Huber he is regarded to be the main representative of the Danube School setting biblical and historical subjects against landscape backgrounds of expressive colours. He is remarkable as one of the first artists to take an interest in landscape as an independent subject. He acquired an interest in art from his father, Ulrich Altdorfer, who was a painter and miniaturist. The remains of Altdorfer's surviving work comprises 55 panels, 120 drawings, 125 woodcuts, 78 engravings, 36 etchings, 24 paintings on parchment, and fragments from a mural for the bathhouse of the Kaiserhof in Regensburg. He signed and dated each one of his works. The displayed painting is a crop from The Adoration of the Shepherds.