Taddei Tondo

This is a cast of the Taddei Tondo, directly copied from the original sculpture housed at The Royal Academy of Arts, London (ORIG3200).
The infant figure of St John the Baptist stands to the left with his baptismal bowl, the “attribute” with which he’s often recognised in art history.
He presents a bird to the infant Christ, who momentarily turns towards his mother, symbolically anticipating his future destiny; the bird is widely believed to be a goldfinch, which represents the Christ’s Passion, the time of suffering before his Crucifixion, because a goldfinch is said to have removed a thorn from Christ’s crown when he was carrying the cross.
While it’s often thought that Christ’s reaching away from the bird and towards his mother expresses his fear, more recently other scholars have argued that Christ’s pose is playful as the goldfinch was a common pet in this period.
The sculpture got its nickname because it was commissioned by the wealthy cloth merchant and connoisseur Taddeo Taddei and Tondo is a Renaissance term for a circular work of art.
Credit & Full text. Royal Academy of Arts, London. 2 April 2017