The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is preparing to launch the largest exhibition dedicated to Renaissance master Raphael ever held in the Americas. Scheduled to run from March 29 through June 28, 2026, "Raphael: Sublime Poetry" will showcase more than 200 extraordinary works including paintings, drawings, decorative art objects, and tapestries spanning the career of the Italian artist who lived from 1483 to 1520.
The ambitious exhibition is being curated by Carmen Bambach, a renowned specialist in Italian and Spanish Renaissance drawings who serves as a curator in the Met's department of prints and drawings. Bambach has been working on this logistically complex show since 2018, when her previous blockbuster exhibition "Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer" concluded. "The seven-year journey of putting together this exhibition has been an extraordinary chance to reframe my understanding of this monumental artist," Bambach said in a statement. "It is a thrilling opportunity to engage with his unique artistic personality through the visual power, intellectual depth and tenderness of his imagery."
The exhibition will be organized in a broadly chronological structure, tracing Raphael's artistic development from his early years in Urbino through his prolific Florentine period (approximately 1504-1508) to his final decade working in Rome's papal court. The show will pay special attention to recent scientific analysis of Raphael's work and his distinctive depictions of women. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
One of the exhibition's most remarkable features will be the extensive breadth of international loans secured by the Met, allowing Bambach to reunite finished paintings with their preparatory drawings for the first time in centuries. A prime example includes "The Virgin and Child with Infant Saint John the Baptist in a Landscape" (The Alba Madonna) from around 1509-1511, on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which will be displayed alongside preparatory studies from the Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille.
Among the prestigious works making the journey to Manhattan will be several masterpieces from world-renowned institutions. The Musée du Louvre will lend the "Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione" (1514-1516), while the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna will contribute "The Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia with Saints Paul, John the Evangelist, Augustine, and Mary Magdalene" (around 1515-1516). The Galleria Borghese will provide the "Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn" (1505-1506).
The exhibition draws from an impressive network of international lenders, including the British Museum and National Gallery in London, the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence, the Museo del Prado and Patrimonio Nacional de España in Madrid, the Albertina in Vienna, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, the Szépmúvészeti Múzeum in Budapest, the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, and the Vatican Museums.
The Met's own collection contributes three works by Raphael to the exhibition. The most famous is the altarpiece created for the Sant'Antonio convent in Perugia, "Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints" (around 1504). The museum also owns a panel that was part of that altarpiece's base, "The Agony in the Garden" (1504), and a later drawing of "Lucretia" (around 1508-1510).
A spokesperson for the Met confirmed that this major exhibition will not travel to other venues. The last Raphael exhibition of comparable scope in the United States was the National Gallery of Art's "Raphael and America" in 1983, which coincided with the 500th anniversary of the artist's birth and featured more than 100 objects. A smaller, more focused exhibition titled "Raphael and His Circle: Drawings from Windsor Castle" traveled to the National Gallery of Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the J. Paul Getty Museum from 2000 to 2001.
In a playful concluding note, art enthusiasts may remember that the Met's 2018 Michelangelo exhibition received an unexpected visit from the artist's namesake Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle during its closing days. Only time will tell whether the fictional turtle's brother Raphael, known for his red bandana, pair of three-pointed sai weapons, and fiery temper, will emerge from the New York City sewers to visit "Sublime Poetry" next year.
