Two men from behind and a child

A photograph of a drawing depicting two men from behind and a child now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 59 recto). This drawing features on the verso a study for a man (see RCIN 854277 for a photograph of the verso).

Ruland (1876) catalogued this drawing as a preparatory study for a figure of another drawing in the Gallerie dell'Accademia (see RCIN 854275 for a photograph of it). The Gallerie dell'Accademia (see Bibliographic References) associated the figure catalogued here with a 15th century small bronze sculpture called "the man of fear" (l'uomo della paura), which is in turn based on an antique statue of Marsyas.

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 854278) can be found in the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection, portfolio 47 (970607)