Titian, 'The Aldobrandini Madonna', about 1532

The Virgin and Child and the young Saint John the Baptist – a common subject from the fifteenth century onwards – are accompanied by a kneeling woman, who cannot be clearly identified. She holds the infant Christ in her arms and gazes at him in adoration. John the Baptist is identified by his camel skin and reed cross.

There is some confusion as to which, if any, New Testament episode is represented here. The shepherd and herdsman in the middle distance – and the angel in the sky – might allude to the Annunciation to the Shepherds (Luke 2: 8-17) and suggest the birth of Christ. However, the presence of John the Baptist, who gives the Virgin fruit and flowers for his baby cousin, would be more appropriate to a Rest on the Flight into Egypt – but we would expect Saint Joseph to be included in such a scene. This must be a non-narrative picture intended for private devotion, combining selected elements from the life of Christ.

Several aspects of the composition are also unresolved: it is not clear how the infant Christ is supported as the kneeling woman appears to have no arms. Titian does not seem to have been bothered by this, as he allowed at least two variants of the composition to be made in his workshop; these are now in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. This is an early instance of something that became standard practice in his workshop in subsequent decades.

The picture may have been the one recorded by Marcantonio Michiel in Andrea Odoni’s collection by 1532, as a ‘picture with Our Lady in a landscape, with Christ and John as children, and Saint [...], by the hand of Titian’, although in the nineteenth century this painting was said to have been signed and dated 1533. In any case, it fits well stylistically with Titian’s work of those years.

The painting is in remarkably good condition, though it has suffered some damage along the top, where part of the canvas was once folded back over a smaller stretcher. A strip of canvas was at some point added to the left to expand the picture; in Titian’s original arrangement John the Baptist’s right foot was closer the left edge of the picture and the Virgin’s face at its centre.

Unusually, Titian chose not to dress the Virgin in the traditional red and blue. This may have been because including red would have meant the blue dress did not harmonise so well with the sky.