From Drawings To Artwork

In 1513,Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici was elected Pope,the future Leo X,who commissioned Raphael to produce 16 tapestry cartoons in 1514,but only completed 10 in the end,which now remaining seven kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum.After completed,the cartoons were immediately sent to Brussels,where to turned into finished tapestry products by Pieter van Aelst's tapestry factory,and now the 10 tapestries were still under the custody of the Vatican Museums.The cartoons were not returned to Rome along with the tapestries but left alone in Brussels for more than half a century,during which time other tapestries were commissioned by other kings and nobility in accordance with Raphael's cartoons.This article mainly focuses on the cartoons and tapestries commissioned by Leo X,by observing the pictures to find the most significant differences between tapestry and cartoons and then,analyze the reasons for the differences between the two.Besides carrying on the analysis from the picture content,this paper also tries to analyze the background and content sources of the cartoons to explore the deep reason why the tapestry can not copy the cartoons completely.