Group of Elders from St. Paul Preaching at Athens / Caryatid and Studies of a Bull and a Lion
Early XIX century. Pencil, Grey-brown ink on yellow paper.Not on display
Although the line work of the drawing has the appearance of being sixteenth century, it is indeed hard to see lay-lines in the paper. since there are no old inscriptions on the drawing itself, nor any evidence of ownership other than Fernández Durán´s, the possibility that the drawing could have been made early in the nineteenth century has to be taken into consideration. The connection between the figures on the recto and those in Raphael´s tapestry of St. Paul Preaching at Athens was first pointed out by Paul Joannides, who also noted that the steps on the verso are copied from the same composition. Joannides went on to observe that another drawing by the same hand, also double sided, is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille. He concluded that the Prado an Lille drawings may have formed adjacent pages of the same sketchbook and was inclined to consider Leonardo Cungi as their possible author, since this artist is known to have made several copies of works in the Sistine Chapel, where Raphael´s tapestries decorated the walls. Both the Prado and Lille drawings that might suggest they are not genuine creations from the mid-sixteenth century. The presence at Lille of a companion drawing does however provide a terminus ante quem of c. 1800 for the making of both drawings, since this was the time when Jean-Baptiste Wicar (1762-1834) was building up his collection of Old Master drawings that would subsequently pass to Lille.