Raphael: Sublime Poetry at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Raphael: Sublime Poetry”, on view March 29 to June 28, 2026, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, is the first comprehensive, international loan exhibition in the United States on Raphael (Raffaello di Giovanni Santi; 1483–1520), considered one of the greatest artists of all time.
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Image: Raphael: “Alba Madonna”, c.1511 (detail)
This landmark exhibition will explore the full breadth of his life and career, from his origins in Urbino to his prolific years in Florence, where he began to emerge as a peer to Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, to his final decade at the papal court in Rome. Bringing together more than 200 of Raphael’s most important drawings, paintings, tapestries, and decorative arts from public and private collections around the world, the exhibition will offer a fresh perspective on this defining figure of the Italian Renaissance, presenting his renowned masterpieces alongside rarely seen treasures to reveal an extraordinarily creative mind.
“This unprecedented exhibition will offer a groundbreaking look at the brilliance and legacy of Raphael, a true titan of the Italian Renaissance,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “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.”
Among the highlights will be The Virgin and Child with Infant Saint John the Baptist in a Landscape (The Alba Madonna) from the National Gallery of Art, one of the most emblematic examples of Raphael’s mastery over High Renaissance ideals of harmony and classical beauty, which will be united with his preparatory drawings from the Museum of Fine Arts, Lille, and Portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione, now in the Louvre, widely regarded as one of the greatest portraits of the High Renaissance.
