Study for the allegorical figure of Poetry

A facsimile of a drawing by Raphael (c.1509-10) now in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle (RCIN 912734; see RCIN 852627 for a photograph of the drawing). Lettered with production details and provenance of the work below image. Annotated in pencil at lower right. Included in 'Original Designs of the Most Celebrated Masters of the Bolognese, Roman Florentine and Venetian Schools ... in His Majesty's collection', London 1812, plate XLIII.

The roundel for which this drawing is a study depicts Poetry, flanked by two winged putti holding inscribed panels, from the vault of the Stanza della Segnatura (see RCIN 852621 for a photograph of the painting), where it is painted above the fresco of 'Parnassus'. From 1508 until his death in 1520, Raphael undertook the decoration of a number of spaces in the Vatican Palace for, first, Pope Julius II and, later, Leo X. The first of these commissions was for what was probably the Pope's private library, known as the Stanza della Segnatura. The major aspects of the decorative scheme of the room are as follows: personifications of Poetry, Theology, Jurisprudence and Philosophy in roundels on the vault, with four narrative scenes known as the School of Athens, the Parnassus, the Disputa and the Three Cardinal Virtues on the walls below.