Starting this Sunday, March 29 The Met is betting on Raphael, in what will be the great master’s first comprehensive exhibition in the United States.
“Raphael: Sublime Poetry” will be on display until June 28 and will bring together more than 170 works by the Renaissance star from museums and collections around the world. The exhibition follows the artist’s entire career, from his early days in Urbino (where he was born in 1483 to a painter and poet father) to his rise in Florence, where his peers were Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, and finally to his years in Rome as a leading artist of the papal court.
There are heavyweights, such as “The Alba Madonna,” which is on loan from the National Gallery of Art, and the Louvre’s “Portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione,” considered one of the best portraits of the High Renaissance, but the exhibition also sheds light on Raphael’s processes. The finished works are displayed alongside drawings, sketches and preparatory studies, giving insight into his obsessive dedication to composition, anatomy and emotion.
That behind-the-scenes angle runs through the entire show, which unfolds chronologically, weaving together themes such as her approach to storytelling, her experiments with different media (from chalk to tapestries), and her evolving depiction of women, including idealized virgins and more complex figures.
There are also some reunions worth mentioning: the Colonna Altarpiece, for example, is shown as a complete set for the first time in centuries after its pieces were dispersed in the 17th century. Elsewhere, drawings linked to Raphael’s Vatican frescoes (including studies for “The School of Athens”) show how he planned some of the most famous walls in Western art.
Raphael died aged just 37, but his influence endured for centuries, ultimately shaping everything from court portraits to architectural design. “The seven-year journey to mount this exhibition has been an extraordinary opportunity to reframe my understanding of this monumental artist,” Carmen Bambach, Marica F. and Jan T. Vilcek Curator in the Met’s Department of Drawings and Prints, said in a statement. “It is an exciting opportunity to engage with her unique artistic personality through the visual power, intellectual depth and tenderness of her images.”
In other words: if you’re going to do Raphael, this is how you do it.