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The fresco is from the Villa Labia alla Pelluca, near Milan. The entire fresco cycle was detached in 1821-22. Since 1906 almost the complete cycle has been at the Brera.
In this children's game, one of the players hides his/her head in another's lap and tries to guess who is touching him/her on the back. At the time that Luini was painting this scene he was renewing his expressive means. This took the form of new rhythms and spaces in which to place his figures, which were already fully achieved in structure, movement and expression. At the same time he was discovering new ways of handling light, which owe something to the example of Leonardo's chiaroscuro but are certainly not imitative. Luini's mature pictorial language goes beyond the exquisite manner of Bergognone, acquires something of Leonardo through Bramantino, and derives its intense but measured colour from Solario and his Venetian antecedents. This detail from his fresco cycle is in the tradition of courtly fables that goes back to the International Gothic style.
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