Roman School of the late 17th century, with Flemish influence, the work of an artist working in Rome, a follower in the manner of the female figures of the Workshop of Pietro da Cortona (Cortona 1597 – Rome 1669). Oil painting on canvas. Cleaned and re-lined. Examined under Wood's lamp, it shows some restorations. Dimensions: cm 146x238, with frame cm 150x242. It is not easy to understand to which event in particular the painting refers, but the fire lit for hot water, the woman who presents the child to the two elderly people, can easily be an allegory of the Birth of the Baptist. As with the birth of the Virgin, the birth of the Baptist is represented in numerous artistic works of the past. The man intent on writing would thus be Zechariah, who remained mute because he did not believe that his wife Elizabeth could conceive a child in old age, and imposed the name of the son by writing it on the tablet. Zechariah wrote "His name is John" (Lk 1:5–25; Lk 1:57-66). Immediately Zechariah regained his speech and was granted, from that moment, the gift of prophecy and composed the canticle Benedictus. The white figures, sculptures placed inside the niches in the background, would represent: the first, on the left, depicting a man with a sword near a bound child, The Sacrifice of Isaac (Isaac was also generated by a mother in old age through the intervention of angels, who appeared to Abraham), in the center there is a prophet (probably the prophet Isaiah, one of the four major biblical prophets, to whom a book is attributed: the so-called Book of Isaiah) then on the right, above the bed where the puerpera is lying, in the wall niche there are the figures of Adam and Eve, alluding to original sin. If the child did not have his private parts openly exposed (which declare him to be male), I could have also thought of the Birth of the Virgin, but the figure of the man writing refers to the iconography of the Baptist. The painting "the Holy Family with St. John the Baptist" by Pietro da Cortona compared to the work under examination confirms that the artist in Rome saw and studied the works of Cortona, in fact the profile of the Madonna is similar to the profile of the woman with the red dress, who pours water into the basin fed by the flames. In the photographs and notes, using the photos taken with Wood's lamp, the shapes of the female faces are examined, made with care and good pictorial quality, but which are subsequently altered in the restoration. There are 13 figures in the painting in a fantasy architectural context, embellished by the sculptures inserted in the frontal and lateral niches, The painting is however a demanding work where the author has shown a capacity for good architectural perspective and a satisfactory encounter of characters, carefully studying their placement, to achieve a discreet pictorial balance in the representation; the intervention of workshop pupils is probable.