The scene depicts the meeting of the Holy Family, the Virgin and Child, with their relatives, Saint Elizabeth and the Infant Saint John. This apocryphal subject has its origin in the text 'Meditationes vitae Christi' by the Pseudo-Bonaventure. It is a genre scene or domestic scene which allowed the inclusion of a naked child in a sacred theme, used by Renaissance painters like Raphael in the well known work 'The Holy Family', also known as 'The Pearl' (Museo del Prado), which could have been a source of inspiration for Rubens. The picture was painted in about 1618 and there are numerous copies and replicas in existence.