La Vierge au lapin

Titian made this small picture for private prayer, most likely for Federico Gonzaga, the Duke of Mantua, who ordered dozens of paintings from him over the years. It is named for the white rabbit Mary pins gently to the ground with her left hand. The rabbit is there for a reason. It was believed that hares could breed without mating, which made a white one an old symbol of the Virgin conceiving without sin. Saint Catherine hands the child toward his mother while a shepherd rests in the warm evening landscape behind. X-rays show Titian first painted Mary looking back at that shepherd, then turned her toward the baby instead. He signed it on the stone at the lower left, Ticianus.