drawing
- Museum number
- 1895,0915.623
- Description
-
The Virgin and Christ Child seated, with the infant St John the Baptist before them, seen from behind, after Raphael
Pen and brown ink
Verso: Face of a young man, with eyes closed
Black chalk
- Production date
- 1498-1520
- Dimensions
-
Height: 150 millimetres
-
Width: 115 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- After a drawing by Raphael in the Ashmolean, Oxford (Parker 519).
Lit.: J.C. Robinson, 'Descriptive Catalogue of Drawings by the Old Masters, forming the Collection of John Malcolm of Poltalloch, Esq', London, 1876, no. 185 (as Raphael); P. Pouncey and J.A. Gere, 'Italian Drawings in the BM, Raphael and His Circle', London, 1962, I, no. 42
Pouncey & Gere 1962
1900,0824.115 and 1895,0915.623 repeat a composition part of which, in Raphael's hand, is on the verso of a sheet in the Ashmolean (Parker 519; F [iii] 129) which Fischel dates late in the Florentine period. Other pen and ink copies are in the Louvre (3857; F [iii] fig. 134) and at Windsor (Popham 857, not repr.). The former is presumably the original of St. Morys's facsimile engraving (Weigel 6572).
Of our two, 1900,0824.115, though weak, is the better in quality and may well be by a contemporary of Raphael. A copy of the recto of Ashmolean 519, also in red chalk and from the Lely and Richardson Collections, belongs to Mr. C. R. Rudolf.
The scratchy handling of 1895,0915.623 suggests a draughtsman feebly struggling in the wake of Battista Franco, though the drawing could be even later. On the verso is a sketch in black chalk of a young man's face, lightly scribbled over in leadpoint. Robinson, who considered the sheet to be by Raphael himself, claimed that this was a study for the head of S. John the Evangelist in the 'Disputa'!
Fischel ran these two copies together, giving to the result a nonsensical register number and a composite provenance, with the addition of Cosway.
Literature: F [iii] under 129; JCR 185; Ruland, p. 96, xliv, no. 2.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1895
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1895,0915.623
