Venus and Cupid

A photograph of a drawing in the Royal Collection (see RCIN 912757) which is attributed to a member of Raphael's workshop (perhaps Giulio Romano) and is closely related to the fresco depicting Venus and Cupid on the south wall of the stufetta, or bathroom, in the apartments of Cardinal Bibbiena in the Vatican Palace. The stufetta was frescoed with mythological subjects by Raphael's workshop c.1516.

It has been argued that this Royal Collection drawing derives from Raphael's original compositional design (now lost) for the fresco, and was made in the workshop as part of the preparatory procedure towards executing the final fresco (see Bibliographic References).

Cardinal Bibbiena had a close friendship with Raphael, patronising him on a number of occasions and, it would seem, facilitating the betrothal of the artist to his niece. In addition to the stufetta, Raphael's workshop also painted Cardinal Bibbiena's loggia. Both spaces were designed in a manner imitating ancient Roman painted decoration, and included depictions of episodes from Ovid, grotesques and ornamental motifs. The stufetta was rediscovered in the nineteenth century and survives in a much damaged form today; the loggetta was not rediscovered until the twentieth century.