The Dream of a Knight

Raphael was barely 20 when he painted this, around 1504, and it's tiny, only about 17 centimeters across, small enough to hold in two hands. A young soldier has fallen asleep under a laurel tree, and two women stand over him. The one on the left, plainly dressed, offers him a book and a sword, the hard road of learning and duty. The one on the right offers a flower, an easier life of pleasure. It's the old choice a hero is supposed to make. Raphael keeps it perfectly balanced, the sleeping knight dead center, the little tree dividing the two paths behind him. It seems to have been made as one half of a pair. Its companion panel, the Three Graces, the same small size, is now in Chantilly, north of Paris.