A young man

A photograph of a drawing depicting a young man now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 21 verso). This drawing is on the verso of a sheet depicting two standing men seen from behind (see RCIN 854660 for a photograph of the recto).  

Ferino Pagden (see Bibliographic References), although without identifying an exact model, catalogued the figure depicted in this drawing as a copy of a Peruginesque composition which can be dated around the same time as the execution of the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican (c.1481-1482.

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 854662) can be found in the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection, portfolio 49 (974662)