The painting, probably of the 1520s, is of a shape associated in Venice with votive offerings to the Virgin Mary or a patron saint. Here the warrior who approaches the Virgin and Child on his knees wears European armour, but the silk of his head-dress is from Islamic North Africa, and the trappings of his horse from Islamic Spain; the dagger and belt hanging on the wall are also of Islamic style. It has been conjectured that the painting commemorates the conversion of a Turk.
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