Study for the figure of a Muse

A photograph of a drawing by Raphael (c.1510) now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. no.P WA1846.182r). The drawing is an early preparatory study for the figure of the third standing muse to the left of Apollo in Raphael's fresco of Parnassus, painted in c.1510-11 in the Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican. In the fresco the figure was modified and the face was turned to the right. An engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi (RCIN 852473) and a drawing in the Ashmolean Museum (inv. no.WA1846.272; see RCIN 852475 for a photograph of the drawing) record early versions of the Parnassus composition, both of which show the muse as in the photographed drawing. The figure is generally identified as Melpomene, the muse ruling over tragedy.