A nude female speaking to a man with the draft of a sonnet

A lithographic facsimile reproducing a drawing by Raphael now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. no. WA1846.186 verso). Above the figure of a nude woman speaking to a man, there is a draft for a sonnet in Italian ('Sate servir parmi sdegnasse amore').

In the catalogue of the Italian drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Parker (see Bibliographic References) identified the female figure as a study for the reclining Muse to the left of Apollo in the Parnassus, painted by Raphael in c.1510-11 in the Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican. Joannides (see Bibliographic References) interpreted the male figure as a first idea for the scholar standing to the right of St Gregory's throne in the Disputa (The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament) painted by Raphael around 1508-09 in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican.

This drawing is on the verso of a sheet depicting a drapery study.

A lithographic facsimile of this drawing is also included in the Raphael Collection under the category "General Studies": see RCIN 854338 for it.