The tragic story of how King Herod ordered babies to be slain, seeking to eliminate the newborn Messiah, has been depicted by many artists but rarely with the compassion and eloquence of this great drawing. Raphael was trying to communicate with a wide audience so he created this scene not for a painting, but to be engraved by his collaborator Marcantonio Raimondi. The classical poses, as women flee in formalised panic, lend it a dignified pathos, yet their plight is raw and harrowing. This mixture of grandeur and savagery hits you hard. Above all, the way the central mother looks at us as she runs in our direction breaks out of art, into our world. You can see from this masterpiece of pity why Raphael was a direct influence on Picasso’s Guernica.

https://www.rct.uk/