10 Dollars - Elizabeth II Alba Madonna

The Alba Madonna, painted by Raphael around 1510, entered the Russian imperial collection under Catherine the Great and hung in the Hermitage for nearly two centuries before Andrew Mellon purchased it in 1931 during a covert sale in which the Soviet government, desperate for foreign currency, quietly liquidated dozens of Old Masters. The National Gallery of Art in Washington received it as part of Mellon's founding gift in 1937. Niue's bullion program regularly licenses fine art imagery through arrangements that sidestep the usual reproduction rights complications by working directly with the holding institutions.