The Virgin Adoring the Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and Two Angels

Round paintings like this one, tondi, were a Florentine speciality in the late 15th century, made more often for the rooms of private houses than for church altars. The figures in this one also had a particular meaning in Florence. Mary kneels in prayer before her newborn son, who lies on the ground, two angels stand on one side, and on the other is the child John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence, with a landscape opening up behind them. The Louvre dates the panel only to the last quarter of the century.

Around 1865 it was on the art market in Florence, where it was bought by Giovanni Morelli, the connoisseur famous for telling painters apart by the way they drew ears and hands. He bought it for the Arconati-Visconti family. In 1914 the marquise Marie Arconati-Visconti, widowed since 1876 and the hostess of a well-known Paris salon, gave it to the Louvre.