madonna col bambino, san giovannino e l'agnello

Bernardino Luini's Madonna with Child, Young Saint John, and the Lamb presents the most intimate version of the Holy Family devotional type, combining the tender relationship between the two divine children with the theological symbolism of the sacrificial lamb. The young Baptist's lamb, his traditional attribute as herald of 'the Lamb of God,' creates a prophetic dimension within an otherwise domestic scene: the children playing with the lamb unknowingly enact the relationship between sacrifice and salvation. Luini's Leonardesque warmth and the soft modeling of the children's flesh create the characteristic sweetness that made his workshop's versions of this subject enormously popular.

Luini's delicate sfumato technique and sweetly idealized facial types directly channel Leonardo's manner, with soft atmospheric transitions and the gentle modeling of flesh that made Luini the most popular purveyor of the Leonardesque style.