This previously unpublished study is related to the picture in the Portland Art Museum of around 1670-80, D. Angulo Iniguez, Murillo, Madrid, 1981, II, no. 168, III, pl. 383. The painting corresponds almost exactly with this drawing, except that the Madonna's halo was changed from an aura of light to a thin circular band. Comparable highly finished chalk drawings from the period 1655-70, a number of which are from the Baron St. Helens Collection, are known, J. Brown, Murillo and His Drawings, Princeton, 1976, nos. 14-32, illustrated and Christie's, 5 July 1988, lot 112, illustrated in colour. The majority of these are preliminary studies of the central figure in a painting rather than, as in the present sheet, a complete composition with framing lines which would suggest it was a ricordo or a presentation drawing after the picture.

The most important group of Murillo drawings comes from the collection of Alleyne Fitzherbert, Baron St. Helens (1753-1839), which he acquired from the library of Seville Cathedral while serving as British Ambassador Extraordinary to Spain from 1790 to 1794. The drawings were sold by his nephew and heir Sir Henry Fitzherbert at Christie's in 1840. Sixty Murillo drawings were included in the sale, of which barely twenty per cent can be traced today. All the drawings from this source are accepted by Professor Jonathan Brown as autograph