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Born in the province of Bergamo, Cariani learnt painting in Venice, probably in the workshop of Sebastiano del Piombo. He was one of the most intriguing of the second-rate artists to emerge in the first decades of the sixteenth century. In the Venetian milieu dominated by Titian, he was capable of preserving his singular tone, his powerful, immediate realism, his particular style which incorporated elements from Sebastiano and Titian and sometimes from other artists such as Palma Vecchio and Lorenzo Lotto.
This painting, which was attributed to Lucas van Leyden in the seventeenth century, was meant for private devotion and meditation, as its size suggests it.
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