New Yorkers are being handed a once-in-a-generation art event this spring. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has rolled out "Raphael: Sublime Poetry," billed as the first comprehensive U.S. exhibition devoted to the Renaissance master. The show pulls together an unusually rich mix of drawings, paintings, tapestries and studies, and is scheduled to remain on view through June 28.
According to The Met, the exhibition runs March 29- June 28, 2026 and unites more than 200 works, including over 170 drawings, paintings, tapestries and decorative objects, on loan from museums across the globe. Lenders include the Louvre, the National Gallery of Art, the Uffizi and the Vatican Museums. The museum reports that the installation deliberately pairs finished paintings with their preparatory drawings to show Raphael’s working process, and it points to reunions and technical discoveries that upend long-standing attributions and traditional groupings.
Curated by Carmen C. Bambach, the show is designed to recast Raphael less as a distant idealizer and more as a hands-on draftsman and storyteller. As The Art Newspaper reports, Bambach described the seven-year loan campaign by saying, "I never took 'no' at face value." The outlet notes that the exhibition ultimately brings together roughly 237 works, including dozens of paintings and well over a hundred drawings, many shown side by side for the first time in the U.S.
Highlights to look for
Among the star attractions, visitors will find the National Gallery of Art’s Alba Madonna reunited with its preparatory studies, the Louvre’s Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione and cartoons Raphael created for tapestries in the Sistine Chapel. The exhibition also restores the Colonna Altarpiece as a complete ensemble for the first time in centuries and presents several reattributions and conservation findings. These juxtapositions are intended to spotlight how Raphael and his workshop translated drawings into monumental works on walls and on cloth, according to The Met.
Practical info for visitors
The exhibition is included with regular Met admission and is on view at The Met Fifth Avenue. Expect lines on peak days and consider timing your visit for a weekday morning if you prefer a little elbow room. An audio guide narrated by Isabella Rossellini accompanies the show, per reporting by AFP. For museum hours and ticketing tips, check local listings such as Time Out.
Why it matters
Beyond the blockbuster scale, the show doubles down on Raphael’s central place in the High Renaissance. He trained with Perugino, absorbed Leonardo’s innovations early in his career and was later summoned to the papal court to execute large-scale commissions that responded directly to Michelangelo. That trajectory is underscored in coverage by CBS News, which traces both his youthful debts to Leonardo and his Vatican projects. Critics note that the Met’s focus on drawings and technical research offers New York audiences a rarer, more intimate look at how those seemingly "perfect" forms were actually constructed, line by line.
