World culture: The “Late Raphael” exhibition in Madrid

12 June, 2012, in Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid, Spain) will open the “Late Raphael” exhibition.

This will be one of the most important exhibitions ever to be devoted to the work of Raphael (1483-1520) and his studio and the first to focus on the final phase in the artist’s career when he became the most influential painter in Western art.

Organised in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre (where the exhibition will take place following its showing at the Museo del Prado), the 40 paintings and 30 drawings that comprise this exhibition will be displayed chronologically. As such they will cover the last seven years of Raphael’s life, from the start of the pontificate of Leo X (1513) up to the artist’s death in 1520. This period includes famous works such as the Saint Cecilia Altarpiece (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale) and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, from the Louvre. Space will also be given to the work of Raphael’s principal pupils and followers, Giulio Romano (c. 1449-1546) and Giovanni Francesco Penni (1488-1528), who worked under the master’s close supervision on the late commissions he received.