Review: Raphael: Cartoons and Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel

I won't argue if you claim that the V & A's room of Raphael cartoons is in the normal run of things London's outstanding room of art, and for a while it is supplemented - at no charge - by a parallel presentation of the tapestries from the Vatican for which they were made. There are also related prints and some sublime preparatory studies, including an image taken by pressing wet paper onto an ink drawing to test out the image reversal of the woven version. But the tapestries have faded worse than the cartoons and the other points of difference, though of interest, are not in their favour - so it may be just as good to go after this show, when it will be less crowded and you can also see the V & A's promising-looking exhibition of camera-less photography (from 13 October). Bonus of sorts: the Retable of St George, which takes one of the room's end walls, shows a range of torture scenes which make contemporary art's excesses seem pretty tame.