A statue of a goddess on a plinth, surrounded by reverential figures

This drawing relates to a frescoed roundel depicting Angerona, surrounded by Popes, part of the ceiling decoration of the Sala di Aurora in the Farnese Palace at Caprarola (C. Acidini Luchinat, Taddeo e Federico Zuccari: fratelli pittori del Cinquecento, Rome, 1998, I, fig. 93, ill.). Two studies by Taddeo for roundels on the same ceiling, showing The Goddess Brizo and Harpocrates (or Horus), God of Silence, similar in size to this drawing (both 21.6 cm.), are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Inv. 8091:1 and 8091:2; P. Ward-Jackson, Victoria and Albert Museum Catalogues: Italian Drawings: Volume One: 14th-16th century, London, 1979, nos. 418-9, ill.). A further study for one of the roundels, depicting Sleep accompanied by Phantasos, Morpheus and Icelos, is in the Louvre (Inv. 10481; C. Acidini Luchinat, op. cit., fig. 88).

Cristina Acidini Luchinat has suggested that this drawing derives from a now lost study for the ceiling roundel by one of the Zuccaro. She notes that it is not a direct copy after the study, but that it is transformed into a different subject, that of a virtue or a goddess worshipped by her followers.

We are grateful to Cristina Acidini Luchinat for her assistance in cataloguing this drawing.