A study of Hebe and Proserpine

A photograph of a red chalk drawing now in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. no. A 062), where it is catalogued as by Raphael (c.1518) . The study is of two female figures (possibly Hebe and Proserpine) for the fresco of the Banquet of the Gods from the vault of the entrance loggia of the Farnesina, Agostino Chigi's villa in Rome, which was frescoed with mythological subjects by Raphael's workshop c.1518. Ruland (1876) describes the subject as: "study for Venus and another figure".

The fresco decoration in the Farnesina illustrates the classical fable of Cupid and Psyche, a story which was also frequently used to decorate Florentine wedding chests. Raphael's fresco scheme comprises two primary scenes in the vault (painted to resemble tapestries), accompanied by a series of episodes painted in the pendentives. The whole is encompassed within a fictive pergola, which gives the viewer the impression of looking up into the heavens. Only the upper part of the loggia is painted (the vault and its supporting pendentives and spandrels).