Virgin and Child with Saint Elizabeth and Saint John the Baptist

Bronzino spent these years as court painter to the Medici in Florence, turning out the cool, polished portraits of Duke Cosimo and his circle that made his name. Alongside those official duties he produced small devotional panels like this one, meant for private prayer in a household rather than for a public altar. The Virgin leans cheek to cheek with the Christ child, who holds a slender reed cross, while the young John the Baptist offers up wild strawberries, whose red was read as a sign of the blood to come. Bronzino painted this same composition more than once and signed each version. A near-twin of this panel hangs in London, staged as night, while the Getty's is lit like early dawn. For a long time no one believed the work was his, and it passed as a painting by Andrea del Sarto until a signature turned up in a lower corner.