Classical art

It is not uncommon for a musical artist to feature a piece of classical art, either well-known or obscure as a cover for an album. Sometimes it’s just a portion of a painting, a detail, or the entire piece. 

The album art feature here is mostly 100 years or older, so it is considered in the public domain, and available for use. The tricky part is that the photograph of the artwork is often copyrighted by the museum or gallery that has the painting in its collection. In this case, musicians must obtain permission and rights to use the photo of the art.