Raphael Sanzio (follower of) - Portrait of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, future Pope Paul III First half of the 16th century oil on poplar panel 66.5 x 51.5 cm The panel depicts the young Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III, half-length, looking frontally towards the observer and wrapped in the red cardinal's robe that emerges intensely against the dark background. The construction of the image, marked by a rigorous formal balance, directly recalls Raphaelesque portraiture of the first decade of the 16th century, in particular the famous Portrait of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in the Museo e Real Bosco of Capodimonte, datable to between 1509 and 1511.The work appears to be closely linked to the Neapolitan prototype, from which it takes the compositional structure, the torsion of the bust, the solemn fixity of the gaze and the refined physiognomic definition of the face. The quality of the drafting, soft and calibrated in the luministic passages, combined with the sober monumentality of the whole, suggests a direct derivation from Raphael's milieu.According to collecting tradition, the panel would have been conceived as a preparatory model or study version for the better-known official portrait attributed to Raphael. This hypothesis is based on the close iconographic and formal adherence with the Capodimonte exemplar, one of the most significant cardinal portraits of the Roman Renaissance.The painting in Naples, historically documented in the Farnese collections in Parma and later in the Bourbon collections, has been at the centre of an articulate critical debate concerning both the identification of the character and Raphael's autography. The restoration carried out in the 1990s, however, confirmed the very high quality of the work and consolidated the attribution to Raphael, now generally accepted by critics.The present panel is therefore part of the context of the fortune and diffusion of the image of Alessandro Farnese, a central figure in the political and ecclesiastical culture of the early 16th century, offering a version of particular intensity and expressive concentration of Raphael's famous prototype. Within frame.