The Italian Renaissance artist Raphael may have been called the “prince of painters,” but his masterful drawings were his calling card, even from a young age. We know him best today for paintings such as The Marriage of the Virgin (1504), The School of Athens (1509–11), and The Sistine Madonna (1512–13), but an exhibition opening this month at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art reminds us not to overlook his sketches, tapestries, and other artworks.
This landmark show, “Raphael: Sublime Poetry,” the result of nearly a decade of research, will highlight many of the master’s drawings as part of the more than 200 objects on view. To be shown only at the Met (due to the fragility and importance of several of these artworks), the exhibition will be a reunion of sorts for works made together but held apart for centuries.
“The exhibition will include many cases of works which are reunited for the first time with their historical companions,” noted exhibition curator Carmen C. Bambach, a curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Met, at a press presentation in January. “My choices were often about bringing together works from museums which are very little frequented, even by scholars. You always find gems.”
Here are six reunions to keep an eye out for at “Raphael: Sublime Poetry,” on view from March 29 through June 28.
