WASHINGTON — Paintings and sculptures of popes from six centuries are making their only American appearance at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center.

One of the newest images is a full-length portrait of John Paul II, clad in white, by Natalia Tsarkova. She was trained in Moscow under Soviet rule and now lives in Rome. She did four death portraits of John Paul II as he lay in state last April.

The oldest picture is of Julius II, a copy of a famous picture by Raphael, whom the pope patronized as he did Michelangelo. Best known for leading his troops in battle, Julius vowed not to cut his long beard until the arrival of peace. He never did cut it, said Daniel G. Callahan, director of exhibits at the center, though he drove French forces out of Italy.

One picture in the collection shows Julius as a military leader.

The show includes copies of famous works by Titian and Velasquez.

Callahan said there is no painting or sculpture on view of the new pope, Benedict XVI, since nothing official has yet been produced. A color photo will hang at the entrance to the exhibit.

A smaller version of the exhibition "Papi in Posa" — freely translated from the Italian as "Popes in Portrait" — was in Rome until early this year. The exhibit will not travel to other sites after it closes in Washington on March 31.

"Lenders are in a hurry to get their pictures back," said curator Francesco Petrucci.

The most famous artist in the collection is Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, an outstanding Italian sculptor and painter of the 1600s. His bronze bust of Pope Urban VII comes from a church in the little town of Camerino. Another of his bronze portraits represents Gregory XV.

Still another impressive bronze is one of the few surviving images of Paul IV, who was so disliked by many Romans that they tried to erase his memory by destroying everything that recalled him.

Like the popes themselves, most of the artists are Italian. One American stands out — the Bostonian George Peter Alexander Healy, who portrayed a series of presidents before the Civil War. Healy painted Pius IX in 1871.

Many of the paintings are conventional poses of a seated pope wearing his bright red cope. A few recent ones are less conventional. A sculpted head of John XXIII, who called the Vatican Council II that brought many changes in the Roman Catholic Church, was done by a well-known Italian sculptor of the present day, Giacomo Manzu. Just the pope's head and a hand appear in an innovative painting by Umberto Romano.

Paul VI, who promoted modern art at the Vatican, is shown seated on the papal throne in a work by Spanish artist Alvaro Delgado, with features "forcefully portrayed, almost caricatured," according to the center's official description.