Ashmolean The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin’s teaching collection at Oxford

The paper has creased as it has been run through the press, most notably by Saint Sebatian's head, just below his and Saint Francis's waists, and in the first 'e' of Lefebvre's signature. Ruled graphite lines in the border mark the centres of each side of the image.

The Virgin and Child appear in the clouds above a plain stone apse, in which stand six saints, from right to left: Catherine of Alexandria, Nicholas, Peter, Anthony of Padua, Francis and Sebastian.

Although described by Ruskin as 'Madonna with five Saints (Titian), engraved y Le Febre from the picture in the Vatican', this must be the image in question, the six saints notwithstanding: it reproduces the only religious painting by Titian in the Vatican, his "Virgin and Child with Saints Catherine, Nicholas, Peter, Sebastian, Francis and Anthony of Padua", painted between 1520 and 1525. The engraving is reversed when compared to the original, in which Saint Sebastian is on the right and Saint Catherine on the left. Cook and Wedderburn note that it is from Lefebvre's "Opera Selectiora quæ Titianus Vecellius Cadvbriensis et Paulus Calliari Veronensis, inventarunt ac pinxerunt quæ que Velentinus Le Febre, Bruxellensis, delineavit et sculpsit", published in 1682 (XXI.36 n. 6 cf. VII.224 n. 2).

The print was catalogued by Ruskin only once, in his 1872 catalogue of the Standard and Reference Series, where it occupied no. 105 in the Reference Series, part of a small group of reproductions of Italian renaissance paintings.

In "Modern Painters" (Vol. V, pt viii, ch. ii, § 12 = VII.224) Ruskin noted that a complete set of Lefebvre's engravings after Titian and Veronese could teach the student everything that could be taught about composition. The key works for his discussion were Lefebvre's copies after the Titian's "Virgin and Child with Saints Andrew and Tiziano" (Standard Series no. 23) and "Pesaro Madonna" (Reference Series no. 106) and Veronese's "Triumph of Venice".