#madonna

The odd name comes from the Cowper family, who used to own it — nothing to do with the subject. Like a lot of British collections, it eventually made its way into an American museum in the early 1900s.

This used to be shown as the middle piece of a bigger altarpiece — five panels, according to the National Gallery — until they got separated somewhere along the way. It was even catalogued as someone else's work for a while before curators settled on who actually painted it.

This one has had an odd trip: it belonged to the Russian imperial collection at one point, and the Soviet government sold it off in the 1930s to raise cash — that's apparently how it ended up in Washington.

The candles in this one apparently weren't just decorative — real ones were meant to burn in front of it, so the painted flames would blur together with the real light in a dim room.

Some historians think this one might not really be by the name the museum credits — more likely finished by a student, going by how stiffly the baby is posed. It's named for the family who owned it in Milan for most of the 1800s, which has nothing to do with who's actually pictured.