Half-length portrait of a young woman in profile

For a long time this sheet was credited to a sculptor rather than to a painter. It was catalogued under the name of Mino da Fiesole, a Florentine carver of the previous generation, before scholars recognised the hand of the young Raphael. He drew it soon after reaching Florence around 1505, and he was clearly looking back at an older local fashion. The strict profile view, the woman turned to show her outline against a plain ground, was how Florentine painters like Ghirlandaio and Pollaiolo had shown their women a generation earlier. By Raphael's day the three-quarter turn had largely replaced it. He revives the old profile but rounds it out, giving the head and shoulders a weight and solidity that feels carved, which is perhaps why it could pass for the design of a sculptor for so long.