Like other Renaissance paintings of the Madonna and Child with St John and Angels, the subject arises from a non-Biblical tradition that Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus met Christ’s cousin St John the Baptist, on the Holy Family’s Flight into Egypt. The Virgin is depicted with one breast bared, as if she has recently been suckling her infant son; this recalls the theme of the Virgin breastfeeding common in medieval painting. In her hands is a book which she attempts to hold away from her son, the contents of which probably foretell his future sacrifice and his taking over himself the evil of the world. She looks over her left shoulder onto a scroll being read by a pair of angels…
