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Tapestries

Tapestries

ALESSANDRO PORRETTI (B. 1838)

St Paul Preaching at Athens

c.1858-1900

Engraving | 49.4 x 56.3 cm (platemark) | RCIN 853189

A print after the tapestry of 'St Paul Preaching at Athens' (Acts, Chapter 17, 16-34), one of a set of ten tapestries illustrating episodes from the lives of St Peter and St Paul commissioned by Pope Leo X for the Sistine Chapel. Below the central scene is a horizontal border depicting stories from the life of St Paul immediately after his departure from Athens.

Lettered with artists' and printer's names below image. With coat of arms at lower centre, and head of a man at lower right (detail from the tapestry). On watermarked paper, annotated in pencil on both sides. State without dedication. Described as from Pietro de Brognoli's series of prints after Raphael's Stanze frescoes and Sistine Chapel tapestries dated 1874 (Höper 2001). Not in Ruland (1876).

The tapestry designs were executed by Raphael and his workshop and transported to Flanders, where the tapestries were woven in the workshop of Pieter van Aelst. Seven of the tapestry cartoons survive (including that of 'St Paul Preaching at Athens'), now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, on loan from the Royal Collection. The ten original tapestries, intended to be hung in the Sistine Chapel, are housed in the Vatican Museums.
  • Creator(s)

    Alessandro Porretti (b. 1838) (engraver)

    After Raphael (Urbino 1483-Rome 1520) (designer)

    Nicola Ortis (19th Century) (designer)

    Angelo Biggi (active 19th century) (printer)

  • IX 1a

  • 49.4 x 56.3 cm (platemark)

  • Added to the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection (after 1876)

  • Subject(s)
    • Places
      • Europe
        • Greece
          • Attiki [Greece]
            • Athens [Greece]
              • Areopagus [Athens]
        • Italy
          • Lazio [Italy]
            • Rome [Lazio]
              • Vatican City [Rome]
                • Vatican Palace [Vatican City]
                  • Sistine Chapel [Vatican Palace]
                    • Vatican-Sistine Chapel tapestries
  • Bibliographic reference(s)

    p.134, no.IX.4 (entry by Grazia Bernini Pezzini) (Raphael Invenit 1985 : Bernini Pezzini, G. et al., 1985. Raphael Invenit. Stampe di Raffaello nelle Collezioni dell'Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome)
    p.492, no.H 10.6 (Höper 2001 : Höper, C. Raffael und die Folgen, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2001)