Two drawings after the Entombment

Two facsimile etchings of drawings which are copies after an engraving by Andrea Mantegna depicting the Entombment. These etchings were catalogued by Ruland (1876) as having been 'published by Celotti'; by this he was presumably referring to Luigi Celotti's Disegni originali di Raffaello Sanzio, per la prima volta pubblicati (da Luigi Celotti), esistenti nella Imperial Regia Accademia di belle arti di Venezia (1829). See RCINs 850258.a and 850258.b for photographs of the drawings and 850257 for the print by Mantegna.

These drawings are 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).