Archers shooting at a herm

A crayon manner engraving in reverse by Francesco Bartolozzi of a red chalk drawing by Michelangelo depicting Archers shooting at a herm now in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle (RCIN 912778). Being able to imitated the subtleties of chalk drawings, Bartolozzi made the so-called crayon manner of engraving very fashionable during the eighteenth century.

This drawing is connected to the fresco now in the Galleria Borghese, removed from Raphael's Villa, the so-called Casino Raffaello. Ruland (1876) states that the fresco was "painted by a pupil of Raphael, after a design by Michelangelo in the Borghese Gallery", probably quoting Passavant, who attributed the frescoes to Perin del Vaga after Michelangelo. This fresco is currently attributed to Girolamo Siciolante (c.1544-1545). See Bibliographic References.

Raphael's Villa — a small summer-house, also known as the Casino Olgiati — was destroyed in the siege of Rome in 1849 and used to be in the Galoppatoio area of the present-day Borghese Park. Ruland (1876) notes that: "the three principal frescoes have been removed before". In the life of Raphael written by Quatremere de Quincy and translated into Italian by Francesco Longhena in 1829, it is noted that seven prints after the paintings of this Villa were made by Francesco Saverio Gonzales, five prints of which are in the Royal Collection (see RCINs 854035.a-d and 854037). Longhena also writes that in the Villa there was a portrait of La Fornarina, the fresco of the Marriage of Alexander and Roxana, representations of the Vices with arrows and the Sacrifice of Flora on the ceiling.