While John Gash (2003) accepts Mancini's testimony, others, including Peter Robb and Helen Langdon (both 1998), have raised the possibility that it was painted for Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, who made Caravaggio in effect his household artist from about 1595 or 1596. The sophisticated treatment is appropriate for the cardinal's intellectual tastes and interests (the music held by Joseph is a motet by the Flemish composer Noel Bauldeweyn, with a text from the Song of Songs dedicated to the Madonna, "Quam pulchra es", "How beautiful you are"), and it is unlikely that the artist would embark on a work like this other than as a direct commission.