Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John (1500–1520): Art, History and Details

Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John (1500–1520) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Cristofano Robetta (Italian, 1462–1534).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Active in the early 1500s, the Florentine engraver Cristofano Robetta relied on paintings, frescoes, and works on paper by both Italian and northern European artists, borrowing motifs, figures, and settings with varying degrees of faithfulness. Paintings and drawings by the Florentine artist, Filippino Lippi, were a primary source of inspiration. In this engraving, the central figures of the Virgin, Child, and Saint John derive from Filippino’s Holy Family tondo, though the printmaker replaced the Saints Margaret and Joseph with angels.

Object facts

• Title: Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John
• Date: 1500–1520
• Creator attribution: Cristofano Robetta (Italian, 1462–1534)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Platemark: 25.1 x 18 cm (9 7/8 x 7 1/16 in.); Sheet: 25.1 x 19.1 cm (9 7/8 x 7 1/2 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1924.514

A detail from the museum

Trained as a goldsmith, Robetta’s engraving style consists of extremely fine lines combined with crosshatching and dots.

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• Noelle, Alexander J., and Cleveland Museum of Art. Filippino Lippi and Rome. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2025.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.