An old man standing

A photograph of a drawing depicting a draped man standing now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 36 verso). This drawing is on the verso of a depiction of a flute player (see RCIN 854280 for a photograph of the recto).

The Gallerie dell'Accademia (see Bibliographic References) catalogue the figure of the old man as a prophet, to be associated with a Raphaelesque invention, in particular with the figures depicted by Raphael in his early predelle.

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 854267) can be found in the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection, portfolio 47 (970607)