Landmark Raphael Exhibition at The Met Next Year
- Editor OGN Daily
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
More than 200 of the Renaissance master’s works will be on display from March 2026.
Raphael: Sublime Poetry at the Metropolitan Museum of Art will feature loans from many of the world’s pre-eminent art museums and will be the largest-ever United States exhibition dedicated to the master artist who, centuries after his death in 1520, is still celebrated as one of the greatest painters to ever live.
It's the first comprehensive exhibition on Raphael in the US, bringing together more than 200 of the artist’s greatest masterpieces and rarely seen treasures to illuminate the brilliance of Raphael’s extraordinary creativity. The son of a painter and poet, Raphael engaged with the foremost writers and thinkers of his age, displaying a poetic sensibility that captivated his peers and generations that followed.
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael, is known for his serene and precise work, use of colour and ability to convey emotion. The new show is expected to be a blockbuster. Sublime Poetry will explore the full breadth of Raphael’s career, covering what scholars consider to be his three periods, based on where he was living: Urbino, where he was born; Florence, where he “began to emerge as a peer to Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo”; and Rome, where he spent his final decade as a papal court painter, according to the museum's statement. The exhibition will be organized chronologically.
In addition to some of Raphael’s most notable works, Sublime Poetry will also display recent scientific discoveries about his work that shed light on his creative process. There will also be an emphasis on how Raphael portrayed women. As BBC Culture’s Deborah Nicholls-Lee wrote last year, he was one of the first artists to replace male models with nude female models when painting women.
“This unprecedented exhibition will offer a groundbreaking look at the brilliance and legacy of Raphael, a true titan of the Italian Renaissance,” says Met director Max Hollein. “Visitors will have an exceptionally rare opportunity to experience the breathtaking range of his creative genius through some of the artist’s most iconic and seldom loaned works from around the globe - many never before shown together.”
