This biblical scene is most likely to be the 'Return from Egypt', when according to legend, the meeting of the Holy Family with St. John the Baptist took place. The Virgin is seated in the centre of the composition beneath a tree, holding the infant Christ on her knee. He opens his arms to receive the lamb introduced by the young St. John at the right. Behind St. John, St. Joseph is seated, reading, with a vaguely Veneto-style landscape beyond. At the left Elizabeth stands offering flowers, and an angel kneels offering a basket of fruit.

The composition is loosely similar to another version of the same theme by Ricci, without St Elizabeth but with two angels, with St Joseph posed differently and with St John seated on the ground receiving an apple from the Christ Child. The strongest influence in both pictures is that of Titian, whose religious compositions were copied by Pietro da Cortona and Teniers, and further circulated in engravings. Preliminary drawings for both of Ricci's compositions are in the royal collection, and there is a drawing in the Accademia, Venice, that is clearly preliminary to this work, though with several differences. The landscape at the right might possibly have been put in by Marco Ricci; at least it seems indebted to him in style. The painting was cleaned in 1964.