Procession of the Magi / The Journey of the Magi

This crowd of merchants also features portraits of Sarto's contemporaries, demonstrating thus his skill as a portraitist. On the right, one can observe a portrait of the sculptor Jacopo Sansovino (with whom he worked between 1511-17) standing beside the musician Francesco de Layolle. The painting also includes a self-portrait (visible to the left of Sansovino). A prominent rock in the painting's lower foreground bears the artist's signature which is composed of two interlocking "As".

Like his other early works, this painting is infused with a palpable energy and dynamism. The figures are not refined, polished, or idealised, as they would become in his later art; their poses are relaxed and appear quite natural. As the son of a Florentine tailor, Sarto also enjoyed rendering the texture and fall of drapery. Indeed, in this painting each figure is adorned in a different coloured garment which brings an added element of animation the scene.

This fresco depicts the biblical account of the three Magi arriving at King Herod's palace. The lower foreground, and right side of the painting, are dominated by an animated crowd of foreign merchants carrying exotic goods and animals (including a giraffe visible in the right background). On the left, del Sarto has rendered the edge of Herod's palace with careful foreshortening. One of the unusual things about this fresco is the beautiful Tuscan countryside that forms the painting's backdrop. 

This fresco is in Fresco - Santissima Annunziata, Florence