Raphael Cartoons
The Raphael Cartoons are the surviving seven of a set of ten large modello cartoons, a technical art term for preparatory paintings on paper, to be used for tapestries, designed by High Renaissance painter Raphael in 1515–1516. Commissioned by Pope Leo X for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace, the tapestries show scenes from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles and are hung (on special occasions) below the frescoes of the Life of Moses and the Life of Christ commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV. The cartoons belong to the British Royal Collection but have been on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London since 1865.
The tapestries rivalled Michelangelo's ceiling as the most famous and influential designs of the Renaissance, and were well known to all artists of the Renaissance and Baroque through reproduction in the form of prints. Admiration of them reached its highest pitch in the 18th and 19th centuries; they were described as "the Parthenon sculptures of modern art".