La Fornarina (copy after Raphael)

Around the young woman's upper arm runs a band with two words, Raphael Urbinas, meaning Raphael of Urbino. In the original portrait, now at Palazzo Barberini, the painter put his own name there, and whoever made this canvas copied it. The master died in Rome in 1520, and the portrait seems to have stayed in his studio afterwards, where his former assistants carried on the business. The Galleria Borghese attributes the copy, with some caution, to one of them, Raffaellino del Colle, and dates it to the first half of the 16th century. The pose is kept, her right hand pressing a transparent veil to her breast, the other resting on the red cloth in her lap. The ring she wears in the Barberini picture, though, is missing here. The copy is not on display at the moment.