A group from a Massacre of the Innocents

 photograph of a drawing depicting a mother with her child and a soldier now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 57 verso). This drawing is on the verso of a sheet depicting a nude man standing (see RCIN 854265 for a photograph of the recto). Annotated on the verso.

Ferino Pagden noted (see Bibliographic References) suggested that this drawing is a copy of figures from a Massacre of the Innocents by Luca Signorelli, though she did not identify a specific composition.

This drawing is part of the so-called "Libretto di Raffaello" or "Libretto Veneziano", 53 sheets that used to be mounted in a volume. After complicated negotiations, the sketchbook was bought by the museum in the 1820s, after the death of Giuseppe Bossi, who was its previous owner. A number of scholars debated the author of the drawings (with many names proposed, such as Pinturicchio, Antonio da Viterbo, Eusebio del Giorgio, Girolamo Genga) and their date. In 1984, the Gallerie dell'Accademia catalogued the drawings as by an artist contemporary to Raphael, whose juvenile works he copied in this sketchbook (see Bibliographic References). 

A copy of this photograph (RCIN 854643) can be found in the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection, portfolio 49 (970609)