In every Madonna we have described, we have had to use freely the words _lovely_, _great_, _beautiful_, but one there remains which, more than any other, merits all these titles and others in addition. It is the "_Sistine Madonna_" in the Dresden Gallery. It was the last picture painted wholly by Raphael's hand. It was painted originally as a banner for the monks of St. Sixtus at Piacenza, but it was used as an altar-piece. In 1754, the Elector of Saxony bought it for $40,000 and it was brought to Dresden with great pomp. People who know about pictures generally agree that this is the greatest picture in the world.
[Illustration: ST. PAUL. Detail from _St. Cecilia_. _Raphael._]
Let us see some of the things which it contains--no one can ever tell you all, for as the years increase and your lives are enlarged by joy and by sorrow, you will ever see more and more in this divine picture and feel more than you see. Two green curtains are drawn aside and there, floating on the clouds, is the Virgin full length, presenting the Holy Child to the world. It is far more than a mother and child, for one sees in the Madonna a look suggesting that she sees vaguely the darkness of Calvary and the glory of the resurrection. This is no ordinary child, either, that she holds, for He sees beyond this world into eternity and that His is no common destiny;--at least, one feels these things as we gaze at the lovely apparition on its background of clouds and innumerable angel heads. St. Sixtus on one side would know more of this mystery, while St. Barbara on the other is dazzled by the vision and turns aside her lovely face. Below are the two cherubs, the final touch of love, as it were, to this marvellous picture.
It is said that the picture was completed at first without these cherubs and that they were afterwards added when Raphael found two little boys resting their arms on a balustrade, gazing intently up at his picture.
This painting has a room to itself in the Dresden Gallery, where the most frivolous forget to chat and the thoughtful sit for hours in quiet meditation under its magic spell. One man says, "I could spend an hour every day for years looking at this picture and on the last day of the last year discover some new beauty and a new joy."