The Marriage of Alexander and Roxana

An etching with engraving after a painting by A. Coypel, depicting the scene of the Marriage of Alexander and Roxana. This print is lettered at the bottom with the names of the printmaker and intermediate draughtsman, publication details, the title and an explanation of the subject in Latin. Some of this information is also inscribed at the right, on a pedestal. Trimmed within platemark.

This print is not catalogued by Ruland (1876) and it is listed as an addition in the master copy of the catalogue. Nevertheless, it is pasted on the folio sheet and the organisation of the Raphael Collection is believed to have been largely completed by 1876. In the master copy of Ruland (1876), the annotation states that this painting was made "after the Louvre drawing" (inv. no. 3885), where used to be classified amongst the sheets attributed to Raphael by F. Reiset, but was then attributed to Tommaso Vincidor following a proposal by K. Oberhuber (see Bibliographic References). Many differences between the final etching and the drawing are noticeable, such as the background with the arches opening up towards a landscape, the angel at the right unveiling the curtain and the brazier at the left.

The Bibliothèque Nationale de France holds a print by La Cave, similar to the one in the Royal Collection and according to the library's catalogue, Antoine Coypel made a large painting after a drawing by Raphael as a model for a tapestry by the Gobelins Manufactory around 1700. Subsequently, around 1730, La Cave engraved the same subject after the tapestry, under the direction of Bernard Picart.

A number of Raphaelesque drawings of this scene, including this one, have been related by some scholars to a lost drawing by Raphael for the "Sala di Alexander e Roxana" in the Villa Farnesina, which was frescoed by Sodoma with many differences. This theme was also frescoed in Raphael's Villa, the so-called Casino Raffaello and the detached fresco is now in the Galleria Borghese (inv. no. 303). This building — 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 and there are five prints by him 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.

This fresco derives from Luciano's story in the dialogue "Herodotus sive Action".