Venus, Ceres and Juno

The right-hand half of an engraving by Cherubino Alberti reproducing, in reverse, two of the pendentive frescoes and their flanking spandrels 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. Lettered at bottom left with a dedication to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and the end of the date '1582'. Trimmed in half and within platemark. First state. Not in Ruland (1876).

The figures depicted in the pendentive are Venus, Ceres and Juno; the pendentive reproduced in the missing left-hand side of this print are Venus and the Three Graces. This print is half of one of two prints executed by Alberti which reproduced part of the vault decoration in the loggia of the Farnesina (see RCIN 853932 for the other print). They were reissued in the seventeenth century by Alberti's heirs.

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).