This week, Artnet News re-airs a podcast episode in which Kate Brown interviews Ben Davis about the Metropolitan Museum of Art's blockbuster exhibition "Raphael: Sublime Poetry." The show is the first comprehensive international loan exhibition dedicated to Raphael in the United States, featuring 237 works including 33 paintings, 142 drawings, and the Sistine Chapel tapestries. Loans come from the Louvre, the Vatican Museums, the Prado, the Uffizi, and the British Museum, with many works never shown together before and some never previously leaving Europe. Curated by Carmen C. Bambach, the exhibition took 17 years to assemble.
The episode matters because it explores the deeper story behind Raphael's enduring influence on Western art, examining how the artist both made and unmade the Renaissance. The exhibition's unprecedented scale and international collaboration highlight Raphael's continued relevance and the scholarly effort required to bring such a comprehensive view of his work to American audiences for the first time.