A woman standing

A photograph of a drawing depicting a young woman standing now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 81 verso). This drawing is on the verso of a partial copy of the Three Graces (see RCIN 854547 for a photoraph of the recto). Annotated on the verso.

The Gallerie dell'Accademia (see Bibliographic References) ascribed the left arm of the figure to a later artist, while the woman could be associated with various figures from the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, both the ones destroyed and the ones still preserved.

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 854269) can be found in the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection, portfolio 47 (970607)