Workshop of Leonardo da Vinci
Madonna and Child with St. Anne

Circa 1480-1524
Oil on panel
The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California

This is a more animated variation on the Anna Selbdritt iconographic type, in which Mary sits on Anne's lap and the child Jesus sits on Mary's. Just at the time when the St. Anne's portraits were making her older, this artist (possibly da Vinci's student Salai) makes her seem almost a young as her daughter.

The Virgin Mary is dressed as usual in a red robe and blue mantle. The child is not dressed at all, a commonplace of 15th-century Madonna and Child images.

The lamb refers both to John the Baptist's proclamation, "Behold the lamb of God" and the prophetic import of that statement – that Jesus will die as a sacrificial lamb for the sins of mankind.

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Photographed at the museum by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.