Art in Ads · 12

The Painter Who Lent His Name to a Ninja Turtle

Raphael, the turtle in the red mask. The original owner of that name was a Renaissance painter.

Raphael, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, ca. 1504

Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints

Raphaelca. 1504

01Where you've seen it

In 1984 the American comic artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The four turtles were named after Renaissance artists: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael. Raphael, the one in the red mask, borrowed his name from the painter Raphael.

Raphael's paintings turn up in gift shops too. The two little angels at the bottom of his Sistine Madonna, chins on their hands and gazing upward, have been lifted out of the picture and printed on postcards and wrapping paper more times than anyone can count.

02The real story

The Raphael at Pyeongye is an altarpiece he painted around 1504 for a convent in Perugia, Italy. Born in 1483, he was just past twenty. Saints surround the Virgin and Child on a high throne, and in the half-moon panel above, God gives a blessing.

The 16th-century biographer Vasari wrote that the nuns asked for the children to be painted fully clothed. Raphael died in 1520 at the age of thirty-seven. His life was short, but his name still lives in children's toy boxes.

Tell a friend like this

The real Raphael behind the Ninja Turtle painted this altarpiece when he was barely past twenty.

One line is enough.
Next time that painting shows up, your friend will spot it first.

See this painting up close →