In the Eremitani Museum, Padua: an anonymous Venetian painter of the fifteenth century.

Another anonymous Venetian from the Eremitani: enormous legs are about to become a feature of the genre…

In Andrea del Sarto’s painting at the National Gallery, London, the gigantic infant is amused by his aunt Elizabeth and cousin John, who have dropped by with the symbols of the Crucifixion.

Massive legs (looking as though they have come from a different child) and massive hair, by Bartolommeo Ramenghi (1484–1542) at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Lazzaro Bastiano (Venice, late 15th century) at the Eremitani. The baby props up his head in a manner physically impossible at his presumed age.

Marco Palmezzano (1459–1539) has produced a baby with no neck, and a rather larger head than that of his older cousin St John. (Padua, the Eremitani Museum)

A grim slab of a baby with a weary, old, face, by a Paduan painter, possibly Prospero da Piazzola (late 15th century).

Another chunky yet flat baby, gazed on by an impassive goldfinch, by Vittore Crivelli (late 15th century) in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Natty shorts, though, and he is holding a pink!

Madonna and child by Sebastiano del Piombo, in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Again, disproportionately long, fat, thighs … (and a very grumpy expression).

This detail from the recently restored ‘Adoration of the Shepherds‘ in the Fitzwilliam Museum shows that Sebastiano could do a bit better, though the legs are still far too long.

The Holy Family with the infant St John, by Jacob Jordaens, in the National Gallery, London. The contrast between the sensitively depicted mother and the bizarre child is almost painful.