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Artist

Raphael

Year
Urbino 1483 - 1520 Rome
Price range
3,000,000 USD +
Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo, Raphael has for centuries been admired as one of the giants of the High Renaissance in Italy.

Although he died young, at the age of only thirty-seven, Raphael’s legacy of classicism, of a supremely graceful and harmonious art which strove towards ideals of perfect balance and beauty, dominated the academic tradition of European painting until the mid-nineteenth century. Giorgio Vasari deemed the gracious and urbane Raphael the “prince of painters” and, befitting an artist named for an archangel, the biographer judged his works “divine.”

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Selected artworks
Market

Top 3 auction prices

37,313,432 $
2007
47,852,600 $
2012
48,009,960 $
2009

Details

The sales are: Christie’s London – 5 Jul 2007 lot 91 (18,500,000 GBP), Sotheby’s London – 5 Dec 2012 lot 52 (29,721,250 GBP; this is a work on paper), and Christie’s London – 8 Dec 2009 lot 43 (29,161,250 GBP; also a work on paper). Only two paintings fully attributed to Raphael have appeared in auction since 1985; one is the aforementioned Medici portrait sold in 2007, the other is an ex-Taubman collection small roundel sold in 2016 for 3.25M USD.
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Further Reading

Antonio Forcellino, Raphael: A Passionate Life, Cambridge, 2012.

Konrad Oberhuber, Raphael, the Paintings, New York, 1999.

John Shearman, Raphael’s Cartoons in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen and the Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel, London, 1972.

Notable Exhibitions

London, The National Gallery, Raphael, 9 April – 31 July 2022. Curated by Tom Henry, David Ekserdijan, and Matthias Wivel.

Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Raphael: The Drawings, 1 June – 3 September 2017. Curated by Catherine Whistler and Ben Thomas.

Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, Late Raphael, 12 June – 16 September 2012; travelled to Paris, Musée du Louvre as Raphaël, les dernières années, 11 October 2012 – 14 January 2013. Curated by Paul Joannides, Tom Henry, and Vincent Delieuvin.

Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, From Raphael to the Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome, 29 May 2009 – 6 September 2010. Curated by David Franklin.

London, The National Gallery, Raphael: From Urbino to Rome, 20 October 2004 – 16 January 2005. Curated by Carol Plazzotta, Tom Henry, and Hugo Chapman.

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Raphael and America9 January – 8 May 1983. Curated by David Alan Brown.

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