The Raphael Cartoons are seven large cartoons for tapestries, surviving from a set of ten cartoons, designed by the High Renaissance painter Raphael in 1515–16, 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 below the frescoes of the Life of Christ and the Life of Moses commissioned by Pope Sextus.
The cartoons belong to the British Royal Collection but since 1865 are on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes
St Paul Preaching in Athens
A rare display of the tapestries in the Sistine Chapel, 2011
Christ's Charge to Peter
A modello, from Italian, is a preparatory study or model, usually at a smaller scale, for a work of art or architecture, especially one produced for the approval of the commissioning patron. The term gained currency in art circles in Tuscany in the fourteenth century. Modern definitions in reference works vary somewhat. Alternative and overlapping terms are "oil sketch" (schizzo) and "cartoon" for paintings, tapestry, or stained glass, maquette, plastico or bozzetto for sculpture or architecture, or architectural model.
Oil sketch modello by Tiepolo, 69 x 55 cm, for this five-metre-high (16 ft) altarpiece
Sacrifice of Isaac; Lorenzo Ghiberti's successful competition modello for the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistry, Bargello.
Michelangelo shows Pope Julius II his modellino of St Peter's in this 19th-century artist's impression