This large cartoon, made up of 26 sheets, was a present to Michelangelo's biographer Ascanio Condivi (c. 1525-1574), whose unfinished painting hangs in the Casa Buonarroti today.
There can scarcely be a connection between the subject depicted here and the title in the inventory of Michelangelo's legacy: instead of the veneration of the Wise Men from the Orient, two women with two children meet here, with an older man joining them from the left. Presumably, it is Anne or the aging Elizabeth and the Mother of God shown here, with the infant John and Christ playing at their feet.
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