Raphael
One of his most important papal commissions was the Raphael Cartoons (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum), a series of 10 cartoons, of which seven survive, for tapestries with scenes of the lives of Saint Paul and Saint Peter, for the Sistine Chapel. The cartoons were sent to Brussels to be woven in the workshop of Pier van Aelst. It is possible that Raphael saw the finished series before his death—they were probably completed in 1520. He also designed and painted the "Loggie" at the Vatican, a long thin gallery then open to a courtyard on one side, decorated with Roman-style grottesche. He produced a number of significant altarpieces, including "The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia" and the "Sistine Madonna". His last work, on which he was working up to his death, was a large "Transfiguration", which together with "Il Spasimo" shows the direction his art was taking in his final years—more proto-Baroque than Mannerist.
Ralph Raphael
In 1944 Raphael married Prudence Maguerire Anne nėe Gaffikin, who was a professional violin and viola player. They had a son, Tony, and a daughter, Sonia. By 1998 there were two grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. Ralph Raphael was keenly interested in the visual and performing arts, becoming a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the National Gallery in 1986; his favourite pastime was contract bridge. Raphael died of ischaemic heart disease, in Cambridge on 27 April 1998.