Portrait of Giovanni Francesco Penni
by GIULIO ROMANO, Black chalk on grey-brown prepared paper, 394 x 240 mm
This is a study for the head of the figure next to Constantine in the fresco of the Vision of the Cross in the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican executed by Giulio Romano and Giovanni Francesco Penni and their assistants after Raphael’s death in 1520. It is an ‘auxiliary cartoon’: a full-sized drawing, made on the basis of an outline pounced through from the main cartoon, of a detail which the artist wished to realise with particular care.