From 1515 onward, Raphael worked on a cycle of tapestries for the Sistine Chapel depicting the work of the apostles Peter and Paul. His drawings later served as models for numerous other tapestry series. In the 19th century, one of them came from London to Berlin where it was displayed in prominent places on the Museum Island until its loss in World War II.
The story of the Berlin Raphael tapestries is told from four perspectives. An art-historical view deals with the subjects, the genesis and the original arrangement of the scenes in the Sistine Chapel. A look at the history of restoration sheds light on the discourses about the "proper" handling of works of art in the 19th century.
The reconstruction of the first large special exhibition in the Berlin Royal Museum in 1848 shows what forms of presentation prevailed in European galleries of the time. Finally, historical photographs of the objects and their exhibition venues will be used to reconstruct about 100 years of the Berlin presentation history of the Raphael tapestries.