A young woman

A photograph of a drawing depicting a young woman now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 58 recto). This drawing features four putti on the verso (see RCIN 851874 for a photograph of the verso). Annotated on the verso.

Ferino Pagden (see Bibliographic References) noted that this figure could be a copy of an invented figure drawn by the young Raphael, who early on in his artistic career studies drawings by Leonardo.

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 854423) can be found in the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection, portfolio 48 (970608)