Venus and Vulcan

Raphael died in Rome in 1520 and left his workshop, drawings included, to two of his assistants. The ablest was Giulio Romano, who stayed on in Rome for a few years and then went north to Mantua in 1524 to work for the Gonzaga. Small panels like this one, barely 38 centimetres tall, kept Raphael's inventions in circulation. The scene of Venus in Vulcan's forge with Cupid and five putti was engraved by Agostino Veneziano in 1530, and specialists still disagree over whether the design is Raphael's own or his workshop's. The Louvre catalogues the panel itself as the work of Giulio Romano's workshop rather than his hand. A preparatory drawing for the composition is kept in the museum's own drawings department. When Louis XIV's paintings were inventoried in 1683, the entry named both men: Jules Romain, after Raphael's design.