The Madonna of Loreto is an oil on panel painting by the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael, executed c.

[2][3] For centuries the painting kept company with Raphael's Portrait of Pope Julius II, first at the Santa Maria del Popolo, then in private collections, and for a time their location was unknown.

For instance, this painting received its name from a copy at the Basilica della Santa Casa in Loreto which was at one time thought to be the original.

[6] Saint Joseph's melancholy nature in this picture may signal his proclivity for prophecy and the coming events for the Child.

For centuries the painting was co-located with the Portrait of Pope Julius II, first at the Santa Maria del Popolo, then in private collections, and for a time their location was unknown.

[10] An array of Renaissance artists were brought in to decorate the Santa Maria del Popolo church and its chapels in Rome, beginning with Raphael.

[17] The painting now residing in Chantilly, France, thought lost since the time of the French Revolution (1789–1799),[11] is believed to be the original.

The exhibit was held at the request of the Institut de France, administrator of Musée Condé, and organized by the Louvre museum.

First, the quality of the painting is extremely high, depicting an "admirable equilibrium of motives and a subtle mixture of force and grace" of "the best works of Raphael".

[18] At the Salon of 1814, Joseph Théodore Ricomme (born 1785), a noted engraver of great paintings such as Raphael's Madonnas, received a medal for an unprecedented showing of prints, notably for the supreme quality modern engraving of Raphael's Madonna of Loreto and Adam and Eve.

[19] Abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe's Palmetto Leaves (1873), a memoir and travel guide of Florida in the days following the end of the American Civil War, recounts comments from a woman named Minnah upon seeing the lithograph of Madonna of the Veil by Raphael: O good Lord!