Raphael Cartoons

The Raphael Cartoons are seven large cartoons for tapestries, surviving from a set of ten cartoons, designed by the High Renaissance painter Raphael in 1515–16, commissioned by Pope Leo X for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace. The tapestries show scenes from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles and are hung (on special occasions) below the frescoes of the Life of Christ and the Life of Moses commissioned by Pope Sextus. The cartoons belong to the British Royal Collection but since 1865 are on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The tapestries rivalled Michelangelo's ceiling as the most famous and influential designs of the Renaissance, and were well known to all artists of the Renaissance and Baroque through reproduction in the form of prints.^[1]^[a] Admiration of them reached its highest pitch in the 18th and 19th centuries; they were described as "the Parthenon sculptures of modern art".^[2]

^ White, John; Shearman, John (September 1958). "Raphael's Tapestries and Their Cartoons". The Art Bulletin. 40 (3): 193–221. doi:10.2307/3047778. JSTOR 3047778.
^ Wölfflin, Heinrich (1968). Classic Art; An Introduction to the Renaissance. New York: Phaidon. p. 108.

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[1] White, John; Shearman, John (September 1958). "Raphael's Tapestries and Their Cartoons". The Art Bulletin. 40 (3): 193–221. doi:10.2307/3047778. JSTOR 3047778.

[3] Wölfflin, Heinrich (1968). Classic Art; An Introduction to the Renaissance. New York: Phaidon. p. 108.

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