The High Renaissance


   

 


Raphael


 
 


 

Raphael

(b Urbino, 28 March or 6 April 1483; d Rome, 6 April 1520).

Italian painter, draughtsman and architect. He has always been acknowledged as one of the greatest European artists. With Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Titian, he was one of the most famous painters working in Italy in the period from 1500 to 1520, often identified as the High Renaissance, and in this period he was perhaps the most important figure. His early altarpieces (of 1500–07) were made for Citta di Castello and Perugia; in Florence between 1504 and 1508 he created some of his finest portraits and a series of devotional paintings of the Holy Family. In 1508 he moved to Rome, where he decorated in fresco the Stanze of the papal apartments in the Vatican Palace—perhaps his most celebrated works—as well as executing smaller paintings in oil (including portraits) and a series of major altarpieces, some of which were sent from Rome to other centres. In Rome, Raphael came to run a large workshop. He also diversified, working as an architect and designer of prints.
 

 

                    

                      

 


The Granduca Madonna

1504
Oil on wood, 84 x 55 cm
Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

 

 

The Three Graces

1504-05
Oil on panel, 17 x 17 cm
Musee Conde, Chantilly


 

Allegory (The Knight's Dream)

c. 1504
Oil on wood, 17 x 17 cm
National Gallery, London
 
 

Madonna with the Book (Connestabile Madonna)

1504
Tempera on canvas transferred from wood, diameter 17,9 cm
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg


 

Madonna and Child (The Small Cowper Madonna)

1504-05
Oil on wood, 58 x 43 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington