Saint Luke, standing on the left, presents a male donor kneeling in profile to the Christ Child, who is held by the Virgin on the right. The young Christ leans forward, his arms outstretched, to touch the face of the donor. The background is sky and landscape, with a green curtain on the right.

This is a variant of a clearly superior painting attributed to Titian now in the Kisters collection, Kreuzlingen. In the Kisters picture Saint Catherine occupies the place of the donor. Various versions of both the Kisters painting and the Royal Collection picture exist, with the donor traditionally believed to be a member of the Cornaro family. Palma is known to have admired and emulated Titian, and this Titian-esque picture is attributed to him. A painting of very similar appearance, attributed to Palma, is the Madonna, Saints John the Baptist and Sebastian at Dijon, and both pictures may be compared with the signed Madonna and Three Saints in the S. Pietro Martire, Murano.

The painting appears in Pyne's illustrated Royal Residences of 1819, hung in the Queen's State Bedchamber (RCIN 922103).