Book Description

One of the purposes of this exhibition and its catalogue is to help familiarize North American audiences with a great French collection of Italian drawings that, famous for its remarkable holding of sheets by Raphael, remains otherwise insufficiently known. The point is to show Raphael in his context and, perhaps more significantly, the context in the light of Raphael. It aims to provide pleasure and excitement for the visitor in encountering some of the most incisive and intelligent drawings produced in a period universally acknowledged to be one of great draftsmanship, but also to demonstrate that even geniuses require soil in which to grow. Thus while works by Raphael form the exhibition's center, they are placed in dynamic relation with those by his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors. /