Subsequent spring, the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York will open the Americas’ largest ever exhibition dedicated to the Renaissance grasp Raphael (1483-1520), bringing collectively greater than 200 work, drawings, ornamental artwork objects and tapestries. Raphael: Elegant Poetry (29 March-28 June) is being curated by Carmen Bambach, a specialist in Renaissance drawings from Italy and Spain and a curator within the Met’s division of prints and drawings. She has been engaged on this logistically complicated present since 2018, when her earlier blockbuster, Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer, closed.
“The seven-year journey of placing collectively this exhibition has been a rare likelihood to reframe my understanding of this monumental artist,” Bambach stated in an announcement. “It’s a thrilling alternative to interact along with his distinctive creative persona by way of the visible energy, mental depth and tenderness of his imagery.”
The exhibition, which will likely be accompanied by a completely illustrated catalogue, will likely be structured broadly chronologically—tracing Raphael’s profession from his early years in Urbino and his prolific Florentine interval (round 1504-08) to his ultimate decade as an artist in Rome’s papal court docket. Particular consideration will likely be paid to current scientific evaluation of Raphael’s work and his depictions of ladies.
The large breadth of loans secured by the Met will permit Bambach to reunite completed work with preparatory drawings—for instance The Virgin and Little one with Toddler Saint John the Baptist in a Panorama (The Alba Madonna) (round 1509-11) from the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork (NGA) in Washington, DC, will dangle alongside research for it from the Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille.
Raphael, The Virgin and Little one with Toddler Saint John the Baptist in a Panorama (The Alba Madonna), round 1509-11 Nationwide Gallery of Artwork, Washington, DC, Andrew W. Mellon Assortment. Courtesy Nationwide Gallery of Artwork, Washington
Additionally making the journey to Manhattan would be the Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (1514-16) from the Musée du Louvre, The Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia with Saints Paul, John the Evangelist, Augustine, and Mary Magdalene (round 1515-16) from the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna and Portrait of a Girl with a Unicorn (1505-06) from the Galleria Borghese. Different lenders to the Met’s present embody the British Museum and Nationwide Gallery in London, the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence, the Museo del Prado and Patrimonio Nacional de España in Madrid, the Albertina in Vienna, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, the Szépmüvészeti Múzeum in Budapest, the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin and, after all, the Vatican Museums.
The Met’s personal assortment contains three works by Raphael, most famously the altarpiece he created for the Sant’Antonio convent in Perugia: Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (round 1504). The museum additionally owns a panel that was a part of that altarpiece’s base, The Agony in the Garden (1504), and a later drawing of Lucretia (round 1508-10).
A spokesperson for the Met confirms that the exhibition is not going to journey. The final Raphael exhibition of an analogous scope within the US was the NGA’s Raphael and America again in 1983, which was aligned with the five hundredth anniversary of the artist’s delivery and included greater than 100 objects. A smaller exhibition targeted on drawings by Raphael, his lecturers and pupils—Raphael and His Circle: Drawings from Windsor Castle—travelled to the NGA, the Artwork Gallery of Ontario and the J. Paul Getty Museum from 2000 to 2001.
Followers of Renaissance masters might recall that the Met’s 2018 Michelangelo exhibition was visited by the artist’s namesake Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in its closing days. Solely time will inform whether or not the fictional turtle’s brother, Raphael, distinguished by his crimson bandana, pair of three-pointed sai and sizzling mood, will likely be lured from the New York Metropolis sewers to go to Elegant Poetry subsequent 12 months.
- Raphael: Elegant Poetry, 29 March-28 June 2026, Metropolitan Museum, New York
