Half-length portrait of a young woman in profile

This is one of the most exquisite drawings by the young Raphael and dates to the period when the artist moved to Florence between 1504 and 1505. The work, previously ascribed to the Florentine sculptor Mino da Fiesole, was inspired in both subject and composition by the famous female portraits painted in the second half of the fifteenth century by Piero del Pollaiolo and Domenico del Ghirlandaio, reinterpreted in a more three-dimensional and sculptural style.