Maesta (Duccio)
1311 · Museo dell'Opera del Duomo (Siena), Siena
When Duccio finished it in 1311 the whole of Siena walked it to the cathedral in procession, with the bells going the entire way.
★ 8.8
The Art canon
Sourced and hung.
Every work chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
Sistine Madonna
1512 · Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden
Two bored cherubs lean on the frame at the bottom, and they floated free of the altarpiece long ago onto everything else.
★ 8.7
The Portinari Altarpiece
1476 · Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Three weathered shepherds crowd in to look at the newborn, and when the triptych reached Florence from Bruges the local painters took note.
★ 8.3
Adoration of the Magi
1423 · Uffizi Gallery, Florence
The kings arrive with a retinue of horses, hounds and a leopard, every surface tooled in gold for one of Florence's richest families.
★ 8.0
Madonna of the Rocks
1485 · Louvre, Paris
Leonardo painted this cave twice after falling out with the patrons. This is the earlier version, the one that stayed in France.
★ 8.0
Madonna and Child with Canon Joris van de Paele
1436 · Groeningmuseum, Bruges
Van Eyck spared the old canon nothing: the stubble, the swollen hands, the spectacles. His armored saint mirrors the whole room in miniature.
★ 7.8
The Virgin and Child with St Anne
1513 · Louvre, Paris
Three generations nest into one shifting pyramid, and Leonardo kept reworking it for years without ever calling it finished.
★ 7.8
The Montefeltro Altarpiece
1474 · Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy
An ostrich egg hangs from the vault and pulls every sightline down. Federico is shown from the left because a tournament took his right eye.
★ 7.8
Ognissanti Madonna
1310 · Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Where Cimabue and Duccio floated their Madonnas on gold, Giotto gave his weight, a real throne, and a body that presses through the cloth.
★ 7.6
San Marco Altarpiece (Madonna and Saints)
1443 · San Marco Museum, Florence
The saints share one continuous space instead of separate compartments, and the two kneeling physicians are the name-saints of the Medici who paid.
★ 7.6
The Newborn Child
1650 · Musee des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, Rennes
No halo, no manger, just a candle shielded by a hand and a swaddled baby, and it still reads as a nativity.
★ 7.4
Madonna of the Rocks 2
1505 · National Gallery, London
The second version, painted to settle a long quarrel with the confraternity. Everyone now has a halo and the angel has stopped pointing.
★ 7.4
Maesta (Cimabue)
1280 · Louvre, Paris
Six angels stack up the sides of the throne against gold. Cimabue taught Giotto, and the throne here is just beginning to recede into space.
★ 7.3
Rucellai Madonna
1285 · Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Four and a half meters tall, the largest panel painted in its century, with six angels kneeling to steady a throne that seems to float.
★ 7.3
The Madonna in a Church
1429 · Gemaldegalerie, Berlin
The Virgin is far too big for the cathedral because she stands for the Church itself, and real sunlight falls in patches across the floor.
★ 7.2
Madonna of the Harpies
1517 · Uffizi Gallery, Florence
The little demons carved on the pedestal were taken for harpies and gave the picture its name. Del Sarto was called the faultless painter.
★ 7.1
Nativity
1530 · Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden
All the light in the picture comes off the newborn child, and one shepherd throws up a hand against the glare.
★ 7.1
Flight into Egypt (A. Carracci)
1604 · Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome
The holy family is tiny and the landscape does everything, which is the arrangement Poussin and Claude would build whole careers on.
★ 7.1
Adoration of the Magi (Botticelli)
1478 · Uffizi Gallery, Florence
The three kings are Medici, and the young man in the saffron cloak at the right, looking straight out at us, is Botticelli.
★ 7.0
Madonna and Child (Duccio)
1300 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Christ reaches up to push his mother's veil aside. Scorch marks on the original frame record centuries of candles set before it.
★ 6.8