We braved the cold after lunch and walked to the Victoria and Albert to spend some time exploring the V&A’s goodies. As we worked our way down through rooms of furniture, ceramics, glass, ironworks and about a million other items, we were often lured into the next room, then another until we were completely disoriented. We didn’t visit ALL 145 galleries—I doubt that anyone has—but we were still overwhelmed. Even without reading the signs we were able to recognize furniture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, ceramic tiles from Iznik in Turkey, glazed Renaissance reliefs by Florentine Lucia della Robbia, sculptures by Auguste Rodin and the distinctive blown-glass of Dale Chihuly.
It was really the Raphael Cartoons we came to see. Not Mickey Mouse or Porky Pig, “cartoons” in the Renaissance were full-scale drawings on paper used as templates to transfer the design onto its final surface. Leonardo used a cartoon to transfer the design for his “Last Supper” to the walls of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan; Raphael’s Cartoons were designs for ten tapestries commissioned by Pope Leo X depicting the lives of Peter and Paul, the founding fathers of the Christian Church, to be hung in the Sistine Chapel.
While Leonardo’s cartoon for the “Last Supper” has been lost, seven of Raphael’s ten cartoons are on display in the V&A’s Raphael Court, including all four dealing with Saint Peter and three of the six showing Saint Paul. While created as guides for the finished tapestries, Raphael’s Cartoons stand on their own as works of art.
The original tapestries were woven from silk, wool and gold and silver thread in Brussels in the workshop of Pieter van Aelst, “Tapestry Maker to the Pope.” Other versions were made in other workshops, one of which hangs opposite its cartoon in Raphael Court. It didn’t take us long to realize that the tapestry for “The Miraculous Draught of Fishes” was a mirror image of its cartoon, something Raphael had to take into account when creating the design. Another thing we noticed, the provenance for the cartoons has recently been changed from “Lent By Her Majesty The Queen” to “Lent By His Majesty The King.” Even museums have to keep up to date!
