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

The Virgin cradles the infant Christ on a cushion in her lap as he suckles at her breast. Saint Andrew, carrying his cross over his shoulder, watches from the left; Saint Tiziano, wearing bishop's robes, gazes at Christ from the right, whilst Titian watches from behind him, holding the saint's crozier.

Identified by Cook & Wedderburn as 'Lefèbre's engraving of the picture at Cadore', the print reproduces the painting in the parish church at Pieve di Cadore, Titian's birthplace; the engraving has reversed the composition from left to right. Wethey notes that, although the composition is Titian's, the execution is too weak, and must have been almost entirely by the workshop, c.1560.

The engraving was catalogued in 1870, and again in 1872, as no. 23 in the Standard Series. However, it can no longer be found within the Teaching Collection, and is illustrated here with an impression from the Hope Collection in the Ashmolean Museum.

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 (i.e. "Opera Selectiora quæ Titianus Vecellius Cadvbriensis et Paulus Calliari Veronensis, inventarunt ac pinxerunt quæ que Velentinus Le Febre, Bruxellensis, delineavit et sculpsit", 1682) could teach the student everything that could be taught about composition. The key works for his discussion included this print, as well as Lefebvre's copies after the Pesaro Madonna (Refernce Series, no. 106) and Veronese's "Triumph of Venice".