A study of the Almighty

A photograph of a drawing by Raphael in the Ashmolean, Oxford (inv.no.WA1846.207) for the roundel mosaic depicting the Eternal Father in the cupola of the chapel of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, which was executed by Luigi de Pace in 1516 after Raphael's design. Annotated on verso.

This drawing was catalogued by Ruland (1876) correctly as a life study but incorrectly as having been executed in metalpoint; rather it was made using red chalk over stylus lines. On the recto of this sheet is another drawing by Raphael of the same figure but posed in the opposite direction (see RCIN 853850 for a photograph of this drawing). The pose of the figure in the drawing catalogued here matches that in the executed mosaic.

The Chigi chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo was the burial place of the Papal banker Agostino Chigi, who commissioned Raphael to work on a number of projects in Rome during the 1510s. Raphael was responsible for designing the chapel itself as well as all aspects of its decoration, which encompassed mosaics, sculptures, tombs and (probably) an altarpiece. In the cupola of the chapel, a central roundel containing a depiction of God the Father is surrounded by compartments containing personifications of the seven planets and stars, all executed in mosaic. The chapel remained unfinished at the deaths of both artist and patron in 1520.