This website presents our knowledge and research on this important aspect of the Royal Collection. As of April 2026 it will not be regularly updated and new research on this topic will sit within the main website.

Vatican Frescoes

Vatican Frescoes

AFTER A WORK ATTRIBUTED TO RAPHAEL (1483-1520)

A Triton

c.1853-76

Albumen print | 13.6 x 9.7 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 853742

A photograph of a drawing of a triton blowing a conch shell. Not in Ruland (1876); an annotation in a late nineteenth-century hand to the catalogue states that the drawing was then in the Uffizi at Florence. The annotation relates the drawing to a desorative element in the Loggia, designed by Raphael and executed by his workshop (c.1517-19) in the Vatican; it may perhaps be related to a now lost part of the decoration on an exterior pilaster, another element of which is reproduced in a print by Cherubino Alberto (see RCIN 853741 for an impression of this print). Annotated on verso.

A drawing which appears to be of the same composition is in the Musée Bonnat, Bayonne (inv.no.1226).
  • Creator(s)

    After a work attributed to Raphael (1483-1520) (artist)

  • annotation: Pf. 39. 132; Insert R. Cat. / page 232, / 132a Photo of a pen / and ink washed sketch / of the Tritons; - in / the collection of the / Uffizi at Florence; Loggia LXIV 132a [verso, top; centre; bottom, in pencil; all different hands?]

  • 13.6 x 9.7 cm (sheet of paper)

  • Acquired for the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection (after 1876)

  • Subject(s)
    • Arts, Recreation, Entertainment & Sport
      • Decorative motifs
        • Grotesques
    • Religion & Theology
      • Religions and faiths
        • Religions of antiquity
          • Classical mythology
            • Triton (myth)
    • Natural Sciences & Mathematics
      • Biological sciences
        • Zoology
          • Animals
            • Shells (animal)
              • Conch Shells
    Object type(s)
      • visual works
        • photographs
  • Bibliographic reference(s)

    Davidson 1985 : Davidson, Bernice F. Raphael's Bible. A Study of the Vatican Logge, 1985 pp.27-38

    Dacos 2008: Dacos, N., The Loggia of Raphael: A Vatican Art Treasure, 2008 pp.15-135

    Other number(s)

    Ruland p.232 B.132a(add)