Imagine I asked you to name the famous Italian Renaissance artist who angered his patron by repeatedly missing deadlines because he was busy studying perspective. You’d probably answer Leonardo da Vinci. Other artists could be dilatory, but no other artist is as famous for putting his research before his painting. It’s practically Leonardo’s signature. 

Yet, in this case, you’d be mistaken. The artist in question is somebody unexpected—somebody set to receive a major retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this spring, his first in the United States. His reputation holds him as the most enterprising, diligent, and proficient painter of the period: the short-lived Raphael of Urbino (1483–1520). Since Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists (1550/68), Raphael has been considered the model of reliable efficiency, embodying the adage, “If you need something done quickly, find a busy person.” Despite dying young, in his late 30s, Raphael produced numerous drawings, paintings, and buildings. Study is not something legend tends to associate with him. Easily absorbing style after style, Raphael deployed them at will like a chameleon. His facility was so great that it was annoying: Michelangelo griped that Raphael stole everything he knew from him.