Holy Family with Saints Anne and John the Baptist (Luini)

Holy Family with Saints Anne and John the Baptist is a c. 1530 oil on panel painting by Bernardino Luini.

It was previously in the collection of cardinal Federico Borromeo, who recorded his acquisition of it in his writings and gave it to the new Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan in 1618, where it still hangs.

Its popularity peaked in the early 20th century, at which time it hung among the Biblioteca's highlights by Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, but declined in the second half of the century, when most art critics reinterpreted it as a superficial copy with variants after Leonardo's cartoon The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist (c. 1501-1505; National Gallery, London).

Luini adds the figure of Saint Joseph on the right, replaces the background landscape with a rocky outcrop covered in vegetation, cuts the scene higher to modify the Madonna's leg and feet and moves the Christ Child to the centre of the composition.

Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo even records that in his time the cartoon was owned by Bernardino's son Aurelio Luini.