Minneapolis Institute of Art

David Beheading Goliath

Marcantonio Raimondi; After Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio)

Date

c. 1520–25

Medium

Engraving

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Around 1517–19, artists from Raphael’s workshop frescoed the interior of a loggia, a long open-sided passageway, in the Vatican. On the ceiling of the eleventh bay is this scene of David beheading Goliath. According to the Books of Samuel from the Bible, the young David, future king of Israel, felled the Philistine warrior Goliath using a simple sling and stone. Here David is set to behead Goliath with the fallen giant’s own sword. Viewers in the 1500s would immediately have interpreted David as Christ, Goliath as Satan, and the Israelites as the Church Triumphant. The engraving differs from the finished fresco in many details. Marcantonio likely based his work on a now-lost drawing by Raphael or a preparatory work by one of his assistants. Italy, Europe

The authoritative record is held by Minneapolis Institute of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.