The composition of this tender depiction of the Madonna and Child is indebted to Titian’s Madonna and Child with Saints Stephen, Jerome and Maurice of c.1520 (now in the Louvre) which Van Dyck had seen in Italy. A drawing of part of it appears in his Italian sketchbook at Chatsworth. Van Dyck has removed the three saints and instead focused on the Madonna and Child, removing the narrative features of the original and creating a pure, devotional image. The colouring, with its red-white-blue triad, is certainly reminiscent of Venetian artists working in the sixteenth century. The picture has been dated to late in Van Dyck's second Flemish period, or conceivably after Van Dyck arrived in London. A number of copies exist.