The scene takes place on a set of richly carpeted steps. A dark curtain in the background opens on the right to show a Solomonic column and some sketchy architectural elements that suggest an indoor setting. The subject was quite common in Counterreformation iconography, and was painted by Rubens, Roelas and even Murillo, among others. It presents the moment when Saint Anne teaches the young Virgin Mary to read. The child kneels at her feet as Saint Joachim looks on. The composition is triangular, with Anne´s majestic head at the top. Her serene, mature and very realistic face and her powerful presence contrast with the fragile sweetness and conventional presentation of the Virgin. Mary´s father stands in the middle ground, and his vertical presence adds life to the scene. The cherubs´ heads at the top bring a celestial touch to this serene and intimate family scene. The light entering from the left brings out the figures´ faces and hands. The ochers, whites and blues contrast with the red in the foreground. Freely applied with long and rapid brushstrokes, they clearly reflect the painter´s personal manner.

This canvas occupied the attic of the main altarpiece at the convent of Saint Anne of the Barefoot Carmelites in Madrid, where the central painting was a copy of Raphael´s Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary, which is at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. It entered the Museo de la Trinidad during the 19th-century disentailment of ecclesiastical property.