An apostle

A photograph of a drawing depicting a standing man seen from behind now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 23 recto). This drawing features a study for the Virgin Mary kneeling on the verso (see RCIN 851289 for a photograph of the verso).

Ferino Pagden (see Bibliographic References) catalogued the figure depicted in the drawing as a copy of the apostle seen from behind on the right side of the 'Delivery of the Keys', frescoed c. 1481-1482 by Pietro Perugino in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican. Various copies of the same figure are also known. The drawing is squared up, although it has not been established whether this is actually to be attributed to a later hand, as the squaring up does not feature either in the etching published in 1829 by Luigi Celotti (see RCIN 854654 for it) or in the various copies after the drawing.

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 854653) can be found in the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection, portfolio 49 (970609)