A male head

A photograph of a drawing depicting a male head now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 68 recto). This drawing features a depiction of a griffin on the verso (see RCIN 854197 for a photograph of the verso). Annotated on the verso.

Ferino Padgen (see Bibliographic References) noted that the exact source for this drawing has not yet been identified and various ideas have been proposed by scholars. Ferino Padgen agrees with Kahl who suggested similarities between this head and the profile heads in the 'Ognissanti Altarpiece' executed by Giannicola di Paolo (now in the National Gallery of Umbria, Perugia), which was in turn probably inspired by compositions by Perugino and Pinturicchio.
 
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 854426) can be found in the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection, portfolio 48 (970608)