Adoration of the Shepherds (Raphael)

Malvasia gave a full account of the letter, which he claimed to have found among the papers of Count Antonio Lambertini in Bologna.

While the existence and contents of the letter are disputed,[1] according to Malvasia it described the delivery of a drawing of the Adoration of the Shepherds to Francesco Francia.

It has a collector's stamp in the upper right corner, which indicates that it was once part of a collection donated to the library of Urbania, region of Marche, Italy in 1667 by Count Bernardino Ubaldini.

The drawing has a short text on the verso side, not all of which is legible but which reads: "Nr 32 questo disegno Appartiene a Lambertini prospero […] dalla esegui che dicesi esser quello che Raffaello Regalo al Mag.

In 1678, when Malvasia published a history of painting in Bologna titled Felsina Pittrice, he included a transcript of a letter which he claimed to have seen.

In the letter Raphael wrote: “In Mean while I send to you by this same messenger, who will be going back in six days, another drawing, viz an Adoration of the Shepherds (presepe), which, as you will see, differs very much from the picture I painted, and of which you were kind enough to speak in such favourable terms”.

[5] The painting referred to in the letter is regarded as lost, possibly destroyed in a fire of the Bentivoglio estate when the papal troops invaded Bologna.

Raphael's technique was to create a quick preparatory stylus sketch on prepared paper before working in chalk.

Marcantonio Raimondi followed almost line for line the pen and ink hatchings, which spread much more consistently over the figures than in earlier compositional drafts.” Ames-Lewis concludes that Raphael's style, in which forms are generated by generic repeated contours, internal modelling is briefly indicated by quick flecks of hatching, and deeper shadows are represented by bolder parallel hatched lines, had matured by 1508.

According to Ames-Lewis: “A figure which he studied carefully for use in one context but the rejected as no longer suitable to the way the design had evolved, may reappear in another similar context.”[9] The kneeling shepherd bears a similarity to the lame man in the Healing of the Lame Man from 1516, as seen in the cartoon, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, including a barrel at the figure's waist.

These models, or garzone, were not always featured in the final versions of the painting, as is evident in the Borghese Deposition study currently in the British Museum, suggested to be from around 1508.

As Passavant wrote after studying the 13 arcades in the Vatican loggias, which Raphael and his artists made in 1519, “This is perhaps the only design in which Joseph is in action, he is generally merely a passive spectator.”[11] Raphael's 1508 drawing of Adoration of the Shepherds would predate the loggias, painted in 1519, and may have inspired the more active portrayal of Joseph.

Later in the 16th and 17th century a number of artists use a similar portrayal of the adoration, including the presentation of one kneeling shepherd and one stepping into the picture, among which was Bonifazio Veronese, from whom this drawing is a copy.