In 1866 Emperor Francesco Giuseppe of Austria ordered to move the set of tapestries from Mantua to Vienna in order to present it temporarily in the Museum of Arts and Industry recently opened. The works remained in Austria more that expected at the beginning, despite the several requests of restitution coming from Mantua. In Vienna the tapestries were housed in the Schönbrunn Castle, where the royal collection of textiles was preserved.
In 1919, after the end of the First World War, diplomatic negotiations started in order to bring back to Italy some works of art that were illegitimately held by Austria. Among those works were the Raphael tapestries, that arrived in Mantua in March 1919 and were presented to the public in an exhibition in the Palazzo Ducale.