A man with a club

A photograph of a drawing depicting a man striking a bull with a club now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 52 recto). This drawing features on the verso various studies (see RCIN 854290 for a photograph of the verso).

The Gallerie dell'Accademia (see Bibliographic References) – interpreting the subject as Hercules killing Achelous as a bull – catalogued this drawing as being possibly one of the depictions of the Labours of Hercules executed by the young Raphael (the same hypothesis has been suggested for another drawing in this sketchbook: inv. no. 30 recto). The angle and shape of the body are close to that of another drawing (inv. no. 56 recto, see RCIN 854281 for a photograph of it). A photograph of a drawing in the Sain Louis Art Museum that copies the one catalogued here is reproduced by the Gallerie dell'Accademia in their catalogue.

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 854282) can be found in the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection, portfolio 47 (970607)