In March 1842 a group of seventeen canvases, reduced copies of the Vatican Stanze, were donated to the Royal Academy of Arts in London. This article publishes the copies for the first time, identifying them as the modelli made by leading Roman painters in the 1770s for Giovanni Volpato’s engraved edition of Raphael’s frescoes. This article considers the context of their execution, the reception of Raphael in the eighteenth century and the ultimate purpose of these copies in the collection of the Royal Academy.