Madona Niccolini-Cowper

Raphael dated this one himself. Around the neckline of the Virgin's dress he wrote it in gold, in Roman numerals, MDVIII, the year 1508, followed by his initials, telling us Raphael of Urbino painted it. That makes it a hinge in his life. It was among the last things he made in Florence before he was called to Rome to work for the pope, the move that would carry him to the Vatican rooms. The Madonna holds the Christ Child against a calm landscape, her gaze lowered, the composition built on the soft, balanced harmonies of his Florentine years. It stayed in Florence in the Niccolini family collection into the 17th century, later went to the Cowper earls in England, and in 1928 was bought by the American financier Andrew Mellon, whose gift founded the National Gallery of Art in Washington.