Our Lady with the Infant Jesus riding on a Lamb

The medium is tempera and pen on canvas, a combination that allows for both linear precision and matte, luminous color. The palette is muted, consisting of soft greens, yellows, and pale tones with darker tree trunks against a yellow-gray sky. The surface shows fine linear brushwork and a dry, delicate finish with visible texture throughout. Light appears diffused, with soft shadows beneath the figures. Small plants and grasses fill the foreground, contributing to the intimate scale and pastoral atmosphere. The handling demonstrates Blake's characteristic linear clarity and flattened composition, with bold outlines creating a visionary quality that transcends conventional religious illustration. The overall effect is one of quiet luminosity, the tempera medium permitting a matte, almost fresco-like surface that enhances the ethereal quality of the scene.

The painting was created in 1800 as one of many works Blake produced for Thomas Butts, his principal patron. The provenance traces from Thomas Butts to his son Thomas Butts junior, then to Sir William Stirling Maxwell, followed by General Archibald Stirling. It was subsequently sold to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Lt.-Col. William Stirling of Kier. The museum acquired the painting by purchase in 1953, assigning it accession number P.26-1953. No exhibition history is recorded in the available sources.

Blake's personal religious symbolism consistently found in childhood innocence and natural simplicity the authentic spiritual state from which adult experience of the world was a fall. This painting emerges from that philosophical framework, combining the holy family tradition with pastoral symbolism in a manner characteristic of Blake's visionary approach. The work belongs to a period when Blake was producing numerous paintings for Thomas Butts, creating a substantial body of religious imagery that sustained him financially while allowing him to explore his idiosyncratic theological ideas. The subject's roots in fifteenth-century Italian art demonstrate Blake's engagement with Renaissance traditions, even as his treatment transforms them through his distinctive aesthetic.

The painting remains in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, accessible to scholars and the public as a representative example of Blake's small-scale religious temperas. Its acquisition by a major national museum in 1953 secured its place within the institutional framework of British art history. The work continues to be reproduced and studied as part of Blake's broader exploration of Christian iconography through the lens of his personal mythology.