The panel's documented history begins with the Orlandini family in Florence. In 1845 it passed to the Lombardi-Baldi Collection, also in Florence, and thirty years later, in 1875, it entered the National Gallery in London^[1]. Scholars date its completion to around 1472, with some placing the final work as late as 1475, based on assessments following Herbert Horne's foundational study of 1908^[1].

A restoration campaign carried out in 1940 uncovered a long history of changes, retouchings and pentimenti across the panel, evidence of a composition that was reworked more than once as it was painted^[1]. The restoration also made visible a striking contrast within the picture itself: the left side shows heavy working and revision, while the right side, believed to have been painted at a later stage, is clearer and more directly handled^[1]. That difference in finish is one of the strongest pieces of evidence scholars use to argue that more than one hand, and more than one campaign of work, produced the finished panel.

Attribution within the composition splits along fairly consistent lines. The kneeling kings, the figure immediately behind them gazing up at the star, his companion, the Madonna, Saint Joseph and the two shepherds, a group of figures Botticelli would return to in later works, are considered securely his own^[1]. Several of the worshippers' heads, by contrast, have been attributed to Filippino Lippi, dating from the period when his style was closely shaped by Fra Angelico^[1]. Two hypotheses have been proposed to explain this division: either the panel was laid out by Filippino's father, Fra Filippo Lippi, and handed to Botticelli as a workshop exercise, or it was begun while Filippino was still working in his father's studio, continued once Filippino moved into Botticelli's own workshop, and finished hastily by Botticelli himself^[1].