The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and John the Baptist as a Child, oil on panel, 91 x 71 cm, framed,

This rare composition relates to the famous Burlington House cartoon which Leonardo produced circa 1500 and is held by the National Gallery in London. Only the posture of St. Anne deviates from that composition. She is based on Leonardo’s painting of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne in the Louvre, Paris, produced circa 1508/10. It is also comparable in terms of the position of her head and her head garment – instead of a veil – to Leonardo’s chalk drawing of the head of St. Anne dated circa 1508 (Royal Library, Windsor). The painter of the present work must have known both works - Leonardo’s large cartoon for a painting, which the Master would never execute in oils, and also his later painting on the same theme (but without John the Baptist as a child). This allows one to suppose that the artist may have been one of Leonardo’s pupils. Luke Syson of the National Gallery, London, whom we thank for his assistance, considers possible an attribution for the present painting to one of Leonardo’s few Spanish pupils, for instance, Hernando Yanez de la Almedina (1489–1536) or Luis de Morales (d. 1586). He compares our painting with a work by Luini in the Ambrosiana, Milan, and with a painting by an unknown master in a private collection in Strasbourg.