PERRLA/Guides/MLA 9/Painting or artwork

How to Cite a Painting or Artwork in MLA 9

An MLA 9 Works Cited entry for a painting or other artwork gives the artist's last name and first name, the title in italics and title case, the year the work was made, and where you saw it. In person, that's the museum and its city: 1857, National Portrait Gallery, London. Online, the year ends with a period, and the museum's website follows in italics with the URL: 1948. MoMA, www.moma.org/collection/works/78455. The in-text citation is the artist's last name alone, since artwork has no page numbers: (Barrett).

The format

Last Name, First Name. Title of the Artwork. Year, Museum Name, City. (Online: Year. Website Name, URL.)

PERRLA MLA Experts ยท Updated October 29, 2026
Checked against the MLA Handbook, 9th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

Choose Artwork, then Artwork in a museum. Add the artist in the Artist role, or a collective's name as a Group Artist. Type the title in Artwork Title and the year in Date Produced. Saw it in person? Type the museum's name in Museum or Collection Name and its city in Artwork Location: City. MLA gives the city alone, so you can leave State and Country blank. PERRLA puts the title in title case and italics and adds the commas and periods.

Saw it on the museum's website? Stay with Artwork in a museum, type the website's name in Museum or Collection Name, leave the location boxes blank, and paste the artwork's page into URL. PERRLA drops the https:// for you.

Format / Medium is optional in MLA. Fill it in, like Oil paint on canvas, when the medium matters to your paper, and PERRLA adds it at the end of the entry. No title? Type a short description in square brackets in the title box, like [Oil painting of a nurse at a bedside]. PERRLA takes the brackets off and prints the description in plain type.

Art you saw outside a museum, like a memorial, a public sculpture, or a mural in a hospital lobby? Choose Artwork viewed outside a museum instead, type the place in Publisher/Venue Name, and add its City and State in the boxes under it. PERRLA prints them after the place: National Mall, Washington, DC.

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same works cited entry by hand.

The parts of the works cited entry

1. Artist

Start with the artist's last name, a comma, and their first name as the museum gives it. Leave off titles like Sir. A group or collective that signs its work as one goes in under its name, not inverted.

Fildes, Luke.

No known artist? Don't write Anonymous or Unknown. Start the entry with the title instead.

2. Title

A painting, sculpture, or other work of art is a whole work on its own, so its title goes in italics, in title case, followed by a period. Use the title the museum gives it.

The Mission of Mercy: Florence Nightingale Receiving the Wounded at Scutari.

Untitled? Write a short description where the title goes, in plain type, with only the first word and proper nouns capitalized: Oil painting of a nurse at a bedside. No italics, no quotation marks, and no brackets.

3. Year

Give the year the artist made the work. Not the year you saw it, and not the date of the museum's web page. For work made over several years, give the range with an en dash.

1857,

Museums sometimes date a work by when it was first shown: Tate lists Fildes's painting as exhibited 1891, so the year is 1891. In person, a comma follows the year, because the museum comes next. Online, a period follows it, because the year belongs to the artwork and the website starts a new part of the entry.

4. Museum and city (in person)

For a work you saw in person, give the museum's name and the city it's in, then a period. You don't need a state or a country.

National Portrait Gallery, London.

Art outside a museum, like a memorial or a mural, gives the place where it stands and its city instead: National Mall, Washington, DC.

5. Website and URL (online)

For a work you viewed on a museum's website, the website is the container. Give its name in italics, a comma, and the URL of the artwork's own page, not the museum's home page. Leave off the city, and drop the https://. End with a period.

MoMA, www.moma.org/collection/works/78455.

The same goes for an image of the work on another site, like Wikimedia Commons or a library's digital collection: that site's name in italics, then the URL.

6. Medium (optional)

MLA doesn't require the medium, but you can add it at the very end of the entry when it matters to your paper, like when you're writing about the artist's technique. Capitalize the first word and end with a period. The museum's own medium line is a good place to find it.

Oil paint on canvas.

Examples

A painting you saw in a museum

Jerry Barrett's 1857 painting of Florence Nightingale receiving the wounded at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari, a fixture of nursing history courses. It hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London, so the entry ends with the museum and the city.

  • In-text citation(Barrett)
  • Narrative citationBarrett places Nightingale at the center of the ward, …

A painting with its medium added

Luke Fildes's The Doctor, a physician keeping watch at a sick child's bedside, is a touchstone in medical and nursing ethics courses. Tate credits the artist as Sir Luke Fildes and dates the painting exhibited 1891, so the entry uses Fildes, Luke and 1891. The medium, from Tate's record, goes at the end.

  • In-text citation(Fildes)
  • Narrative citationFildes paints the doctor as a quiet watcher, …

A painting you viewed on a museum's website

Andrew Wyeth's 1948 painting of his neighbor Anna Christina Olson, who lived with a degenerative muscle condition, often discussed in health humanities and disability studies courses. Viewed on MoMA's collection site, the website (which calls itself MoMA) is the container, so the entry gives its name and the artwork's URL in place of the city.

  • In-text citation(Wyeth)
  • Narrative citationWyeth sets Olson low in the frame, …

Artwork outside a museum: a public memorial

Glenna Goodacre's bronze Vietnam Women's Memorial on the National Mall honors the women who served in the Vietnam War, most of them nurses. Seen in person, it takes the place where it stands and the city, not a museum. It was dedicated on November 11, 1993.

  • In-text citation(Goodacre)
  • Narrative citationGoodacre's memorial shows a nurse cradling a wounded soldier, …

In-text citations

An MLA 9 in-text citation for artwork is the artist's last name. Artwork has no page numbers, so don't add one.

  • One artist: (Barrett)
  • Two artists: both last names joined by and: (Artist and Artist)
  • Three or more artists: the first artist and et al.
  • A group or collective: its name, as it starts the Works Cited entry
  • No known artist: the title, in italics, shortened if it's long, since the title starts the Works Cited entry
  • Two works by the same artist: add a short title after a comma: (Wyeth, Christina's World)
  • Name in your sentence: nothing is left to put in parentheses, so leave them off: Barrett places Nightingale at the center of the ward.

When you name the work in your sentence, put its title in italics and title case, just as the Works Cited entry does: Wyeth's Christina's World shows Olson from behind.

Common mistakes

  • (Barrett, 1857)(Barrett)That's APA. MLA in-text citations don't take the year, and artwork has no page to add.
  • Barrett, J. (1857). The mission of mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the wounded at Scutari [Painting].Barrett, Jerry. The Mission of Mercy: Florence Nightingale Receiving the Wounded at Scutari. 1857,That's APA too. MLA spells out the first name, uses title case, puts the year after the title, and has no bracketed description.
  • 1857, National Portrait Gallery, London, United Kingdom.1857, National Portrait Gallery, London.MLA gives the museum and its city. The state and country are APA habits.
  • Wyeth, Andrew. Christina's World. 1948, MoMA, www.moma.org/collection/works/78455.Wyeth, Andrew. Christina's World. 1948. MoMA, www.moma.org/collection/works/78455.Online, the year belongs to the artwork, so a period follows it. The museum's website is the container, so its name goes in italics.
  • Fildes, Sir Luke.Fildes, Luke.Leave titles like Sir, Dr., and Saint out of the author's name.

Quick checklist

  • Artist inverted, full first name, no titles like Sir
  • Title in italics and title case, or a plain description if it's untitled
  • The year the work was made
  • In person: museum and city, after a comma
  • Online: a period after the year, then the website in italics and the URL
  • Medium at the end only if it matters to your paper

Questions students ask

Do I include the museum's website in an MLA artwork citation?

Only if that's where you saw the work. Then the website is the container: its name in italics and the artwork page's URL, with no city. If you saw the work in person, give the museum and its city and no URL.

Do I need to include the medium, like oil on canvas?

No. MLA treats the medium as optional. Add it at the end of the entry when the materials matter to what you're saying, and take the wording from the museum's record.

How do I cite an untitled painting in MLA 9?

Write a short description where the title would go, like Oil painting of a nurse at a bedside. Capitalize only the first word and proper nouns, and don't use italics, quotation marks, or brackets. The rest of the entry stays the same.

What if the artist is unknown?

Start the entry with the title, then the year and the location. In the text, cite the title in italics, shortened if it's long. Don't write Anonymous unless the work is signed that way.

Do I cite a sculpture, a photograph, or a drawing the same way?

Yes. The same format covers paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, drawings, and installations. If the kind of work isn't clear from the title, add it at the end of the entry, like Bronze sculpture.

Do I need an access date for artwork I viewed online?

Usually not. MLA makes the access date optional, and a museum's collection page is a stable source. Add one if your instructor asks for it or the page looks likely to change.

Rules checked against the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), chapters 5 and 6 (the core elements, containers, optional elements, and in-text citations), and the MLA Style Center pages "How to Cite an Image," "How do I cite a museum image that I viewed in person or online?," "How do I cite a Wikimedia picture of an artwork?," "How do I cite street art?," and "When should I include an access date for an online work?" Example sources are the ones verified for the APA 7 page, re-checked on October 29, 2026: Tate's collection page for The Doctor (artist, exhibited 1891, Oil paint on canvas), MoMA's collection page for Christina's World (site name MoMA, 1948, tempera on panel, read from the Wayback Machine's October 23, 2026 capture), the National Park Service's page for the Vietnam Women's Memorial (Goodacre, bronze, on the National Mall), and the National Portrait Gallery's record for NPG 6202.

PERRLA builds the artwork entry from the artist, title, year, and museum you type in, title case and italics included.

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