The Sacrifice at Lystra

A print after the tapestry of The Sacrifice at Lystra (Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 14, 8-18), 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 Acts of the Apostles flanking Medicean emblems (at centre).

Lettered with artists' and printer's names below image. With coat of arms at lower centre, and head of a child 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 The Sacrifice at Lystra), 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.