RAPHAEL (URBINO 1483-ROME 1520)
The Conversion of the Proconsul Sergius Paulus
c.1514RCIN 912750
In 1513 Pope Leo X commissioned Raphael to design a set of tapestries of the Acts of the Apostles, to be hung in the Sistine Chapel. Raphael painted ten full-size cartoons as models for the weavers in Brussels; the seven surviving cartoons were purchased by the future Charles I in 1623. In this elaborate study St Paul strikes blind the magician Elymas, thus converting the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus to Christianity.
No. 12