Rafael for the people
The author of this article shows that The Penny Magazine, with its wood engravings, functioned as a medium for pictures. In the first years' issues of the magazine, which was first published by Charles King in 1832, one finds reproductions of Raphael' s cartoons for the tapestries in the Sistine Chapel. In the 1830s these were exhibited at Hampton Court, and they are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The pictures of the Raphael cartoons in The Penny Magazine are signed by the xylographer John Jackson (1801-48) of London, who was known for his Treatise on Wood Engraving, published in 1839.
The Swedish publicist Lars Johan Hierta managed to acquire stereotypes from the English magazine, including those of Jackson's engravings of the Raphae1 cartoons. He used them in his magazine Lördags-magasinet in 1836 and 1837. The stereotypes for the motifs of "Peter Receiving the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 16: 15-19; John21: 17) and "Peter Healing the Cripple" (Acts 3) came into the hands of the printer J. P. Lundström in Jönköping, who used them to print the kind of woodcuts that were pasted inside chest lids. Jackson's signature is found on both chest prints, and also on "The Return of the Prodigal Son" based on a painting by the Italian artist Liello Spada (now in the Louvre). "Peter Receiving the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven" was published in Jönköping in several editions between 1850 and 1856 and "Peter Healing the Lame Man" in 1850 and 1851.
Raphael's pictures are narrative, which made them suitable for the repertoire of chest prints. Thanks to the new graphic technique, wood engraving, it was possible to retain the depth and detail of the original pictures. The colouring, on the other hand, had disappeared in Jackson's pictures, but it was restored by Lundström who, true to habit, had the chest prints coloured, although in purely artistic terms they suffered as a result. Lundström added texts to recharge the message of the pictures. Raphael had fulfilled his assignment of depicting the power vested in the keys for the papal residence. Lundström polemized against this, in true Lutheran spirit, in the two chest prints.
It was only when the pictures could be produced for sale at penny prices that they became accessible to the broad masses. As chest prints they could fiII a different function than in the galleries, and in particular they could make the biblical message visually dear. The fact that the original artist, even if his name was Raphael, remained anonymous, is a different matter.
