The Holy Infants Embracing

Two small children, the infant Christ and his cousin John the Baptist, hug and kiss. Leonardo's tender idea was copied some thirty times by his pupils and followers, and travelled as far as northern Europe.

The story behind the painting

The Holy Infants Embracing is a composition associated with Leonardo da Vinci, which Wikidata dates to the 1480s; the sources give no museum or size for it. It shows the infant Christ embracing his cousin John the Baptist. The subject relates to Leonardo's two paintings of the Virgin of the Rocks, and to many Renaissance works, by Raphael and others, showing the meeting of the two children on the road to Egypt as the Holy Family fled the Massacre of the Innocents. An early sketch by Leonardo himself survives in the Royal Collection at Windsor. The surviving images of the subject are mostly versions by pupils and followers, which is why its story is largely one of copies.

What to look for

At the very bottom of Leonardo's Windsor sheet, below studies of the Madonna and Child playing with a cat, two infants kiss and embrace. That sketch differs from the later compositions, but the baby on the right is in the same pose as Jesus in the Virgin of the Rocks. In the painted versions, look for the two children wrapped in each other's arms, cheek to cheek. Backgrounds vary widely. Copies by Marco d'Oggiono place them before a castle, a grotto or a rocky landscape. Others add a half-length Madonna leaning over a table, or show the Virgin, as in the Virgin of the Rocks, blessing the two kissing children.

Meaning and intent

The meaning lies in tenderness and foreshadowing. The two children are cousins whose lives will later be bound together, John as the one who prepares the way for Christ. Shown as toddlers who hug and kiss, they turn a sacred relationship into an intimate, human moment that any viewer can recognise. The link with the Virgin of the Rocks, where the two infants also meet, shows Leonardo exploring the same theme across different works. The popularity of the subject among his followers suggests how appealing this gentle image was. It made the bond between Christ and John feel close and affectionate rather than distant and formal.

Legacy

About thirty copies by Leonardo's pupils and followers are known. Marco d'Oggiono made two, one being the Thuelin Madonna, and Bernardino dei Conti made one that was lost during the Second World War. Bernardino Luini's Holy Family in the Prado shows a similar group. Joos van Cleve, called the Leonardo of the North, repeated the subject many times and introduced it to artists of northern Europe; versions are in the Royal Collection in Brussels, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Mauritshuis. In 2006 a documentary, Da Vinci's Lost Code, tried to authenticate a version called the Lost Babies, whose owner believed it was by Leonardo.

Lo sapevi?

Wikidata dates the composition to the 1480s; the sources give no museum.
An early sketch by Leonardo of two infants embracing is in the Royal Collection at Windsor.
About thirty copies by Leonardo's pupils and followers are known.
Joos van Cleve, the Leonardo of the North, spread the subject in northern Europe.

Wikipedia · Wikidata