The Victoria and Albert Museum’s small but fascinating exhibition Raphael: Cartoons and Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel brought together four tapestries from the Vatican Museum’s famous ten-piece Acts of the Apostles set and seven of Raphael’s original full-scale designs for the weavings, which are housed at the V&A. The show offered an unprecedented opportunity to compare preparatory and final works, each a Renaissance masterpiece in its own right. In addition, a small group of drawings and prints related to the project, on loan from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Louvre, and from the V&A’s own collection, focused attention on the design process, as well as on the afterlife of Raphael’s compelling compositions.

From the late Middle Ages, tapestries, the premier art form of princely magnificence, were often offered as gifts to favored family, friends, and allies. The V&A’s exhibition followed this gift-giving tradition, with the Vatican’s loan of the fragile textiles conceived to coincide with Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to England and Scotland in September 2010, the first papal visit to those countries. The four grand-scale weavings, representing The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, The Charge to Peter, The Healing of the Lame Man, and The Sacrifice at Lystra, plus two allegorical borders, The Hours and The Seasons, provided a memorable experience for the viewer as well as a potent backdrop for the pontiff’s visit.

In 1515, Pope Leo X (r. 1513–1521), the first Medici pope, commissioned Raphael to create designs for ten sumptuous tapestries, the Acts of the Apostles, to be used on special occasions in the Sistine Chapel. Depicting stories of Saints Peter and Paul, the early leaders of the Church, the tapestries’ complex program presented a message of papal authority and, framed by narrative and allegorical borders, celebrated Pope Leo and his rule. Raphael’s full-scale cartoons, constructed of small sheets of paper glued together and painted in bodycolor, were then sent to Brussels to be woven under the supervision of the premier merchant-weaver of the day, Pieter van Aelst.

The first tapestry, The Charge to Peter, was completed in 1517, when Antonio de Beatis, secretary to Cardinal Luigi d’Aragona, recorded seeing it in Brussels on 30 July. Three panels arrived in Rome by July 1519, and on 26 December 1519 seven weavings were displayed in the Sistine Chapel. The luxurious tapestries, richly woven with silk, as well as gold- and silver-wrapped thread, were much admired: Paris de Grassis, the Master of Ceremonies, described them as “the most beautiful in the world.” The final three tapestries arrived by 1521, when they were listed in the papal inventory.

The cartoons, however, remained in Brussels, kept by the weaver, as was the usual practice, to be used for later editions, including sets for King Francis I of France, King Henry VIII of England, and Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga of Mantua. In 1623, Raphael’s cartoons were in Genoa, where seven were purchased by the Prince of Wales, later Charles I of England, for use at the newly created tapestry manufactory at Mortlake. Remaining in the crown’s collection, the designs have been housed in the V&A since 1865.

The exhibition was presented in the V&A’s Raphael Gallery, where the cartoons are permanently installed, with each tapestry hung adjacent to its corresponding cartoon. Drawings and prints, at either end of the room, gave a glimpse of the design process, from initial figure studies, to compositional sketches, to completed compositions. The arrangement invited comparison between the works and also highlighted the unique character of each medium. Raphael’s paintings with their muted tonalities and strongly modeled figures appeared almost sculpted, reflecting the artist’s response to Michelangelo and his careful study of classical art in the 1510s. The dramatic scenes, each focused on a single moment, commanded the viewer’s attention and intellectual engagement. The Vatican tapestries, with silk, gold, and silver threads, depicted the same scenes as the cartoons, recreating their momentous effect. Nevertheless, they were more tactile and luxurious, appealing above all to the senses.

The tapestry representing The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, with its adjacent cartoon, exemplified differences in the two media. Raphael’s masterful painting depicts Christ and a group of simple fishermen, who, after a night without a catch, have once again let down their nets at Christ’s bidding (Luke 5:1–10). Emphasis is placed on action, as the muscular figures haul up their teeming nets. Simon Peter kneels before Christ, who sits calmly in the boat, while Andrew steps forward, his hands outstretched, amazed by the miracle.

This central narrative appears in reverse in the weaving, the result of its production on a low-warp loom. Surrounded by a fictive frame, the tapestry’s scene is, in fact, presented as a “woven picture.” A lower border is rendered as a faux bronze relief, further playing visually with representation and media. Depicting a scene from the life of Giovanni de’ Medici, the future Pope Leo X, the relief represents his arrival in Rome in 1492 after his investiture as cardinal, a recent event augmenting the biblical one above. The tapestry is more complex than the cartoon, with multiple layers of image and meaning.

Further comparison between the two works revealed other variations. While colors in both the cartoon and tapestry have faded and altered over time, some distinctive changes were made between the two. In Raphael’s design, Christ’s robe was originally pink with a blue undergarment; however, in the weaving, the costume was rendered in a deep red with a purple-red beneath. The oarsman at the tapestry’s far left is also draped in red, versus the cartoon’s ochre, and detailed vegetation has been added to the foreground. Scholars usually attribute these changes to the expert weavers, intent on creating a striking work and on exercising their considerable skills.

Both the Raphael cartoon and Vatican tapestry were set next to a later weaving of the subject by the Mortlake workshop, on long-term loan and usually on view in the gallery. Woven in wool and silk in 1637–38, the central image appeared closer to Raphael’s cartoon in color than the Vatican panel, repeating the painting’s softer, muted tones.

Comparing the three works, another surprising difference was evident: the proportions of the Vatican tapestry do not match the cartoon. Instead, the weaving features a composition that is compressed horizontally with figures that are reduced, less volumetric than those of Raphael’s design. The Mortlake tapestry, however, reproduces the cartoon’s proportions more accurately. This difference raises a highly important question about the relationship of these cartoons to the Vatican tapestries. The Mortlake weavings are documented as having been produced from Raphael’s cartoons; thus, it must be asked whether the Vatican tapestries were actually woven from Raphael’s original designs. This question has been raised by scholars about another tapestry on display at the V&A, Christ’s Charge to Peter.

Both the tapestry of Christ’s Charge to Peter and the cartoon depict the dramatic moment when Christ selects Peter to lead his Church (Matthew 16:18–19; John 21:15–17). Again, differences between the preparatory and final work were evident. Colors were changed and vegetation was added. The tapestry also includes a strip of landscape between the heads of the gathered apostles and the townscape viewed in the distance, above. The cartoon, however, shows the buildings immediately above the apostles’ heads. This curious difference has intrigued scholars because of the existence of a cartoon fragment in the Musée Condé at Chantilly copying the Raphael design. In the Chantilly fragment, the apostles’ heads are separated from the townscape, as depicted in the Vatican tapestry. Benjamin Peronnet suggested in 1997 (Dessins italiens du Musée Condé à Chantilly: Raphaël et son cercle, Paris: Musée Condé, 1997, 78–80) that this panel may have been woven from a close copy of Raphael’s cartoon, rather than the original. Subsequently, in 2002, Thomas P. Campbell (Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002, 193) posited whether, in fact, copies of the cartoons may have been used for all the tapestries, a point that scholars must now revisit after the V&A’s exhibition. Given the differences not only in color and detail, but also in the compositional and figural proportions, it appears more and more likely that the Vatican tapestries were woven from a close copy of Raphael’s cartoons. The question, of course, is why?

Raphael’s cartoons with their exceptionally innovative designs would have been completely new to the northern weavers. Even more problematic was that the cartoons were executed in bodycolor thickly painted onto the paper ground. The designs, in fact, may have been unmanageable for the weavers, who traditionally relied on thinly painted cartoons placed directly below the warp threads of their looms. Therefore, Raphael’s original designs may have been copied to facilitate their use by the weavers. Alternatively, Raphael’s cartoons may have been preserved to be sent back to Rome or for eager collectors.

The Charge to Peter panel retains its original lower border, a faux relief depicting the Sack of the Medici Palace in 1494 and Cardinal Giovanni’s escape from Florence. This border is woven together with the main scene as is the side border, an allegorical representation of the Three Fates. The Acts side borders have never been fully analyzed, perhaps because some disappeared when the tapestries were stolen in 1527 during the Sack of Rome. The exhibition, in fact, featured two detached borders, The Hours and The Seasons, whose exact relationship to the Acts tapestries remains unclear.

The V&A’s exhibition was unusually thought-provoking for scholars, raising many points about the Acts of the Apostles tapestries and their cartoons that beg to be addressed. The catalogue accompanying the exhibition presents a general overview of the textiles, their designs, and their subsequent artistic impact in a series of short essays and catalogue entries. Some new and exciting information, however, is also included. Arnold Nesselrath discusses his recent discoveries about the exact placement of the Sistine Chapel’s chancel screen in the 1510s—with compelling evidence that the screen was in its present location when Raphael planned the tapestries for the space—that may help scholars now determine the intended hanging order for the panels, a point of much debate. In fact, before the textiles were sent to London, some panels were displayed in the Sistine Chapel on 14 July 2010 in a new arrangement proposed by John Shearman’s influential installation (Raphael’s Cartoons in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen and the Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel, London: Phaidon, 1972, 21–44). An image of this revised scheme is published here. Also of value are technical findings from the Vatican’s ambitious, ongoing project to conserve the tapestries, detailed by Anna Maria De Strobel.

Ultimately, the V&A’s exhibition was conceived primarily to highlight Pope Benedict’s historic visit, as a distinctive papal “gift”—and, even more significantly, as an effective visual backdrop for the pontiff and his message. Pope Leo X had relied on tapestries to create a spectacular setting for his papal coronation in 1513 and for his 1515 meeting with Francis I of France in Bologna. He commissioned the Acts of the Apostles tapestries, not only to decorate the Sistine Chapel but as powerful political propaganda, intended to reinforce his position and the policies of his papacy. Reprising this traditional role, the four Acts of the Apostles tapestries on view at the V&A once again aimed to persuade and seduce their viewers in an exhibition that raised important questions and that offered much to ponder.