This delightful panel is certainly striking for its mastery of technique and for its ability to express the tenderness of the Infant Jesus in his delicate embrace of the lamb. From an iconographic point of view, the presence of the lamb may refer to the Passion (Jesus as the Lamb of God, whose immolation on the cross redeems all creation) or to Jesus the Good Shepherd, as described in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John (“I am the good shepherd”).
