Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child

In 1589 King Philip II of Spain commissioned Lavinia Fontana to paint a Holy Family gathered around the sleeping Christ Child for the Escorial, his palace and monastery outside Madrid. The subject became one of her specialities, and a dozen or so variants of it are known, among them a small version in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. This one, from about 1605 to 1610, is tiny, roughly 15 by 25 centimetres, painted in oil for close, private looking. The Virgin bends in adoration over the sleeping baby, and for viewers of the time a sleeping Christ Child also pointed ahead to his death. The Museum of Fine Arts bought it in 1986, and it was shown in the museum's 2023 exhibition Strong Women in Renaissance Italy.