Met Museum Plans Major Raphael Exhibition for 2026

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will hold a landmark exhibition next year. It marks the museum’s latest blockbuster of Italian Renaissance art, which studied the dawn of the Renaissance after last fall’s landmark “Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350”, nearly two centuries before Raphael.

The exhibition, titled “Raphael: The Sublime Poetry” and will be held from March 29 to June 28, will be the first ever American to be on board for Raphael. (The exhibition will run on the Metropolitan Metropolis and will not go to other places.) The retrospective exhibition is curated by Carmen Bambach.

Metropolitan director Max Hollein said in a statement: “This unprecedented exhibition will be groundbreaking in Raphael’s talent and legacy, a true Italian Renaissance Titan. Visitors will have an extremely rare opportunity to experience the breathtaking range of his most interested and loan-making works through the artist’s most interested genius.

Raphael, together with Raphael, 37 in 1520, was considered one of the most important artists of the Italian High Renaissance, especially his emphasis on balance and harmony in composition, and was also considered Michaelangelo and Leonardo. Raphael’s career was usually divided into three periods according to his residence: Urbino, where he was born; Florence, where he was active between 1504 and 1508; and Rome, who was a court painter in the state of the Pope until his death. According to the press release, the purpose of the exhibition is to “provide a new perspective on this definition of the Italian Renaissance…revealing extremely creative ideas.”

The retrospective explores his short but prolific career and will bring together 200 works by artists, including paintings, paintings, tapestries and decorative artists. The exhibition will be conducted primarily in chronological order, with the theme section focusing on various images he uses in the art and studying his portrayal of women. Metropolitans will also release a complete catalog of illustrations to accompany the exhibition.

Many of the world’s top museums will loan work to the exhibition, including the Galleria Borghese and Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini in Rome, the British Museum and the National Gallery in London, the Vatican Museums, the Prado in Madrid, the Uffizi in Florence, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, the Albertina in Vienna, the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna and Perugia Nazionale Dell’umbria).

In important loans obtained for “The Sublime Poetry” Portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione (1514–16) From the Louvre, Portrait of a lady with a unicorn (1505–06) From the island of Borges, Rome, Virgins and Children with Infant St. John the Baptist (Alba Madonna)about 1509-11 years, from the National Art Gallery in Washington, DC, and a preparatory picture of the latter painting.

“Planning the seven-year journey of this exhibition is a wonderful opportunity to re-understand my understanding of this gigantic artist. It is an exciting opportunity to interact with his unique artistic character through visual power, intellectual depth and tenderness of his image.”