Madona Garvagh

Around 1509 and 1510, Raphael was up on scaffolding in the Vatican palace, painting the pope's private rooms, the vast frescoes that made his name. In the same stretch of years he kept turning out small Madonnas like this one, panels the size of a book you could hold in your hands. This one shows the Virgin with the Christ child and the infant John the Baptist, and it was almost certainly made for someone at the papal court to pray in front of at home. We do not know who first owned it. The name it carries now comes much later, from Lord Garvagh, a British owner in the 19th century, before the National Gallery in London bought it in 1865.