Raffaello, madonna della seggiola, 1513+14 ca. 04

The young Saint John the Baptist is shown in prayerful profile, looking toward the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child whose hands are visible on the left. He wears a camel-skin tunic and carries a slender reed cross, a traditional attribute. The composition is defined by the soft, rounded forms characteristic of the High Renaissance tondo (circular painting).

The circular 'tondo' format was favored by Renaissance artists to symbolize the Neoplatonic ideal of divine perfection and the harmony of the cosmos. Raphael's work exemplifies the synthesis of Christian theology with the humanist and philosophical currents of the Roman and Florentine courts.