Paton visited Italy in 1868, when he could have seen the original painting by Filippo Lippi of the Virgin with the infant Jesus borne up by angels, in the Uffizi, Florence. Ruskin wrote about La Lippina in Fors Clavigera in 1871, calling it ‘an example of the most perfect unison of religious myth with faithful realism of human nature yet produced in this world’ (vol VI, p 626). While the dimensions of Paton’s copy are nearly the same as the original’s ( 37 ½ x 24 ½ in), the colours are warmer. In 1877 the Arundel Society published a chromolithograph of La Lippina, reduced in size, via a copy by Ansiglione (or Kaiser); because Arundel prints are typically in warmer colours than the paintings they copy, Paton may have used it for colour reference.