Artwork · 16th century · Andrea del Sarto

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The Holy Family with the Young Saint John the Baptist

Andrea del Sartoca. 1528Oil on wood135.9 × 100.6 cm

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At a glance

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The young John the Baptist hands a round globe to the Christ Child while Mary and Joseph look on.
The Florentine painter Andrea del Sarto painted it in oil on a wooden panel around 1528.
Four figures are packed tightly together, yet if you follow their hands and eyes, the story unfolds one step at a time.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom in on the blue-green ball in the middle. A gold band wraps around it, and a small cross sticks up from the top. John holds it from below, and the Christ Child lays a chubby hand on it. A globe topped by a cross was a familiar sign for the whole world.
Look at the old man behind the child. That is Joseph. He looks straight out of the shadows at us. His gaze invites the viewer into the scene.
Move to the left edge, at John's waist. Below the bare skin hangs a shaggy animal pelt. In the Gospels, the grown-up John lives in the wilderness and wears camel hair. Sarto dressed the little boy in that outfit ahead of time.
Now look down at the white cushion. The Christ Child stands on it barefoot, pressing down hard. The cushion sinks a little under his toes. Even the gold stripe along its edge catches the light.
Go to the lower left corner. Two reeds tied together with green string make a small cross, its ends split and broken. This little cross is one of the ways viewers recognize John the Baptist.

When it was painted

Around 1528, Andrea del Sarto was about forty-two. Born and trained in Florence, he was one of the city's leading painters. Giorgio Vasari, who had learned in his workshop, later called him the painter without errors in his Lives of the artists.

The man who ordered this picture was the Florentine Giovanni Borgherini. In 1527 the Medici were driven out and Florence became a republic again, and Borgherini was a prominent figure in that short-lived government. The following year, the republic declared Christ the king of Florence.

The Borgherini family has another story about paintings. Vasari tells how Giovanni Battista della Palla, who was gathering art to send to the king of France, tried to carry off the painted panels from a Borgherini bedroom. Margherita Acciaiuoli, the wife of Giovanni's brother Pierfrancesco, scolded him and sent him away.

Sarto had his own link to that king. In 1518 he was called to the court of Francis I, and he was back in Florence the next year. A Charity he painted around the same time as this picture was likely meant as a gift for Francis. In 2015 the Met showed the two paintings side by side.

In 1529 imperial and papal troops laid siege to Florence. In 1530, as the war ended, Sarto died in a plague that swept the city. This panel later passed through the Rinuccini and Corsini families of Florence, and the Met bought it in 1922.

Now look again at the globe in the middle. John, the patron saint of Florence, hands it to the Christ Child. The Met reads the gesture as a sign that Christ, not the Medici, rules the city.

The painter

Andrea del Sarto

1486–1530

All paintings by Andrea del Sarto →

The Holy Family with the Young Saint John the Baptist

Questions to think about

Look for itCan you spot the thin gold lines drawn above the heads of Mary and John?
Why?Joseph and the Christ Child look out at us, while Mary and John look at the child, so why do you think Sarto split the gazes this way?
What about you?Two children pass the world between them like a ball, so what kind of world are we handing to the next generation today?

Same period