February 2020

Imagine entering the Sistine Chapel without looking up. It seems inconceivable that the eye could fail to be drawn to the sky by Michelangelo's epic ceiling frescoes depicting scenes from the Book of Genesis and those eloquent and…

Installation view of the Raphael Tapestries at the Sistine Chapel (photo by Claudia Viggiani, used with permission) VATICAN CITY — On Boxing Day 1519, on the feast of Saint Stephen, Pope Leo X ordered the exhibition of 7 of the ten…

The painter Georges Rouault said yes to Marie Cuttoli's strange request, but he had conditions and he put them in writing. The Parisian entrepreneur had asked the artist for a modernist drawing to be transformed into a tapestry, a…

"It was totally risky and a totally new thing that had never been done before by these artists, by anyone," said Cindy Kang, the Barnes Foundation curator behind the first major exhibition dedicated to the 'entrepreneur, "Marie Cuttoli:…

The Sistine Chapel in the Vatican (via Richard Mortel/Flickr) To celebrate the 500th anniversary of the death of Renaissance artist Raphael, a number of his designed tapestries will return to the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel in the…