Image: public domain, courtesy of Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
The Alba Madonna
This round painting shows Mary, the baby Jesus and the young John the Baptist resting on the grass in a calm landscape. It is named after the Dukes of Alba in Spain, and later hung for nearly a century in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.
🎧 Audio guide available in the 3D museum
Did you know?
- Raphael painted it in Rome, a few years after he moved there in 1508.
- In Raphael’s chalk sketch for this picture, a young man posed for Mary, because female models were not used then.
- Look at Mary’s hand: she holds a closed book, keeping her place with one finger.
- Look for the thin cross in little John’s hand, and his clothes made of animal skin.
- It was first painted on a round wooden panel; the panel split, so the picture was later moved onto canvas.
- In 1931 the Soviet government secretly sold it to the American banker Andrew Mellon for over a million dollars.
About the artist
Raphael (1483–1520) was born in Urbino and worked in Florence and then in Rome, where he decorated rooms of the Vatican palace for the pope.
He is famous for serene, harmonious Madonnas and for the great fresco The School of Athens.
His father, Giovanni Santi, was a painter who gave him his first lessons, and the biographer Vasari praised Raphael as much for his kindness and charm as for his talent.
More works
The Assumption of the VirginEl Greco, 1577–79
Ginevra de' BenciLeonardo da Vinci, c. 1474/78
The HarvestersPieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565
View of ToledoEl Greco, c. 1599–1600
Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by ChildrenGian Lorenzo Bernini, c. 1616–17
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