Taddeo Copying Raphael's Frescoes in the Loggia of Villa Farnesina, Where He Is Also Represented Asleep
Enlarge (22MB) Zoom in

Federico Zuccaro
Italian, about 1595
Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk
16 11/16 x 6 7/8 in.

Add to Getty Bookmarks

The biographer and painter Giorgio Vasari noted that Taddeo Zuccaro drew "particularly the works by the hand of Raphael that were in the house of Agostino Chigi [the Villa Farnesina] and in other places in Rome. And since very often, when the evening came on, he had no other place wherein to sleep, many a night he took refuge under the loggia of the above-named Chigi's house and in other suchlike places. "Under the light of a crescent moon, Taddeo carefully copies Raphael's frescoes in the arches of the loggia above. Like other young artists of his day, he was eager to educate himself by copying the modern masters. Federico Zuccaro so carefully reproduced these designs that scholars can identify the scenes as Jupiter and Cupid and Psyche Reaching the Palace of Venus. At left, Taddeo lies exhausted, having fallen asleep while drawing.