The Virgin and Child with Saint John

Image credit: The National Gallery, London

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Notes

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The Virgin Mary sits in the shelter of a rocky grotto, with the infants Christ and John the Baptist beside her. This is an early work by the Milanese painter Luini, He was deeply influenced by Leonardo, who was working in Milan from about 1482 to 1499. The figure of the Virgin and the infant Baptist as well as the rocky backdrop seem to be derived, although inverted and with variations, from Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks, also in the National Gallery's collection (another version is in the Louvre, Paris).The plants growing in the foreground, painted in botanical detail, are native to northern Italy and probably all have a symbolic Christian significance -- lupin, dandelion, columbine, wheat and violet. It is possible that The Virgin of the Rocks was being completed in Leonardo’s studio in Milan between 1506 and 1508, when Luini may have seen it.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

The Virgin and Child with Saint John

Date

probably late 1510s

Medium

Oil on poplar

Measurements

H 88.3 x W 66 cm

Accession number

NG3935

Acquisition method

Mond Bequest, 1924

Work type

Painting

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Normally on display at

The National Gallery, London

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

View venue