How you can use this image

This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).

Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.

The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.

Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.

Buy a print or image licence

You can purchase this reproduction

If you have any products in your basket we recommend that you complete your purchase from Art UK before you leave our site to avoid losing your purchases.

Order a print

Notes

Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.

This painting is among the earliest known works by Filippino Lippi, probably made when he was still a member of the workshop of the Florentine painter Sandro Botticelli. It shows the Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ in her right arm. He plucks seeds from a pomegranate -- the fruit was a symbol of the Passion (his torture and crucifixion).Christ's cousin, Saint John the Baptist, looks on in wonder, holding his reed cross and clutching at the folds of his red cloak. A book lies open on the marble sill in the foreground, its text illegible. The vase with flowers may allude to the Virgin, who was thought of as a vessel from which the Christ Child came. A mountainous landscape opens out behind the group, with a little city in the distance.Small paintings of the Virgin and Child with the young Saint John the Baptist were an important source of income for artists in fifteenth-century Florence; they usually decorated the chambers of their owners.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

The Virgin and Child with Saint John

Date

about 1480

Medium

Tempera on poplar

Measurements

H 59.1 x W 43.8 cm

Accession number

NG1412

Acquisition method

Bought, 1894

Work type

Painting

The National Gallery, London

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

View venue

Artist or maker

Filippino Lippi

c.1457–1504

View profile

The Wounded Centaur Christ Church, University of Oxford
Five Sibyls Seated in Niches: the Samian, Cumean, Hellespontic, Phrygian and Tiburtine Christ Church, University of Oxford
The Nativity with Two Angels National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish National Gallery
Adoration of the Kings The National Gallery, London
The Virgin and Child with Saints Jerome and Dominic The National Gallery, London
The Virgin and Child with Saint John The National Gallery, London
The Adoration of the Kings The National Gallery, London
4 more