Die Heimsuchung

By 1517 Raphael was the most sought-after painter in Rome and had far more work than one man could paint, so he ran a large workshop. This altarpiece shows that arrangement plainly. It was commissioned by Giovanni Branconio, an official at the papal court, for his family's chapel in the town of Aquila, and Raphael designed it and drew the composition. Much of the actual painting was then carried out by his gifted assistant Giulio Romano. The scene is the Visitation, when the pregnant Mary comes to her older cousin Elizabeth, who is herself expecting John the Baptist. Raphael sets the two women meeting in the foreground and puts the difference in their ages front and centre, Mary young and Elizabeth aged, so the unlikeliness of Elizabeth's pregnancy reads at a glance. In the far distance, small at the river, John baptises Christ.