Los Santos Niños abrazándose

There is no single original of this picture by Leonardo's own hand. The idea, the infant Christ and the young John the Baptist embracing, seems to have begun as a quick sketch by Leonardo in Milan, jotted at the bottom of a sheet of studies now kept at Windsor. His pupils then turned that thought into finished paintings, again and again. Something like 30 versions survive, by followers such as Marco d'Oggiono and other painters trained around him, and the motif later travelled north through the Antwerp master Joos van Cleve. This panel is one of those workshop products, close to Leonardo's design but painted by another hand. Copying a master's invention like this was ordinary studio business in Milan around 1500.