Hand-Carved Decorative Art

An antique Portuguese wall relief or sopra porte made of Pinewood, in good condition. The Baroque wall panel was hand carved and is richly ornate wi...

Our Two Dice Set features two 6cm wooden dice with delicate malachite inlays. Elevate your game nights with these stylish, handcrafted gems. Celebrating the exquisite art of woodwork...

A distinguished 17th Century Italian carved wooden panel, showcasing the artistry and craftsmanship of the Baroque period. The panel is meticulously carved with an intricate design f...

A French blue, green abstract portrait of books, oil on wood in canvas by Daniel Clesse, painted in France, signed and dated in 1964. Measures: Without the frame: 18" H x 21.5" W x ...

A charming later Victorian textured canvas applied to wood, study of Thomas Gainsborough's three-quarter portrait of the Welsh actress Sarah Siddons, presented in a period Ebonized c...

Italian 17th century still life painting in period carved gilt frame Italian school still life painting from the workshop of a great master. The 17th century Baroque painting in oil...

An exquisite and rare large scale circa 1840 zoological silkwork embroidery picture of native Indian reptiles and amphibians feeding on butterflies in native flora and fungi, depicti...

A large 19th century oil on canvas Bacchante group depicting two allegorical young semi-nude maidens dancing with pan, attributed to Leopold Schmutzler...

Bronze wall decoration representing an eagle with wide open wings made of bronze. There is signature JP at the back of both wings. France, circa 1900.

Vintage Ceramic Jeziorna Polish Pottery Plate Bolesławiec 1960s Poland. Vintage handcrafted ceramic pottery decorative wall plate. Gorgeous carved and hand-painted pottery plate with...

A pair of French hand carved wooden decorative panels from the 18th century, with ribbon-tied swags, flowers and fruits. Born in France during the Age of Enlightenment, each of this ...

Black Forest antique hand carved miniature wall pocket of a fringed game hunter's bag with woodcock, rifle and horn Rich, dark patina and very we...

This ornate, antique paper hand fan was crafted in France, circa 1850. the one side showing a candlelit interior where Gallant scene on the reverse with a box but no glass of box. Se...

Orientalist Painting Wall Art Arab Market Scene Dutch G. Huijsser Antique Frame. Very nice oil on cardboard by Gerard Huijsser, Dutch painter, depicting a gathering of people in a or...

18th century Italian hand-carved and gilded tabernacle door adorned with baroque pearls. This door once belonged on a tabernacle which served the eucharist in a church. It has a heav...

A Fine Italian 19th Century Oil Painting on Canvas "La Madonna della Seggiola" after Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino 1483-1520). The circular painted canvas depicting a seated Madonna holding an infant Jesus Christ next to a child Saint John the Baptist, all within a massive carved two-tone gilt wood, gilt-patinated and gesso frame, which is identical to the frame on Raphael's original artwork. This painting is a 19th Century copy of Raphael's Madonna della Seggiola painted in 1514 and currently exhibited and part of the permanent collection at the Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina, Florence, Italy. The bodies of the Virgin, Christ, and the boy Baptist fill the whole picture. The tender, natural looking embrace of the Mother and Child, and the harmonious grouping of the figures in the round, have made this one of Raphael's most popular Madonnas. The isolated chair leg is reminiscent of papal furniture, which has led to the assumption that Leo X himself commissioned the painting. Circa: 1890-1900. Subject: Religious painting Painting diameter: 28 inches (71.1 cm) Frame height: 55 1/8 inches (140 cm) Frame width: 46 inches (116.8 cm) Frame depth: 5 1/8 inches (13 cm) Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Italian, March 28 or April 6, 1483 - April 6, 1520), known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop and, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body of work. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. The best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael's more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates. Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region, where his father Giovanni Santi was court painter to the Duke. The reputation of the court had been established by Federico III da Montefeltro, a highly successful condottiere who had been created Duke of Urbino by the Pope - Urbino formed part of the Papal States - and who died the year before Raphael was born. The emphasis of Federico's court was rather more literary than artistic, but Giovanni Santi was a poet of sorts as well as a painter, and had written a rhymed chronicle of the life of Federico, and both wrote the texts and produced the decor for masque-like court entertainments. His poem to Federico shows him as keen to show awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very small court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters. Federico was succeeded by his son Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, who married Elisabetta Gonzaga, daughter of the ruler of Mantua, the most brilliant of the smaller Italian courts for both music and the visual arts. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture. Growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Court life in Urbino at just after this period was to become set as the model of the virtues of the Italian humanist court through Baldassare Castiglione's depiction of it in his classic work The Book of the Courtier, published in 1528. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, and they became good friends. He became close to other regular visitors to the court: Pietro Bibbiena and Pietro Bembo, both later cardinals, were already becoming well known as writers, and would be in Rome during Raphael's period there. Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a full humanistic education however; it is unclear how easily he read Latin. Early Life and Works His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight, followed on August 1, 1494 by his father, who had already remarried. Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven; his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. He probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master. He had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been "a great help to his father". A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity. His father's workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter (d. 1475), and Luca Signorelli, who until 1498 was based in nearby Città di Castello. According to Vasari, his father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice "despite the tears of his mother". The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, and has been disputed—eight was very early for an apprenticeship to begin. An alternative theory is that he received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495.Most modern historians agree that Raphael at least worked as an assistant to Perugino from around 1500; the influence of Perugino on Raphael's early work is very clear: "probably no other pupil of genius has ever absorbed so much of his master's teaching as Raphael did", according to Wölfflin. Vasari wrote that it was impossible to distinguish between their hands at this period, but many modern art historians claim to do better and detect his hand in specific areas of works by Perugino or his workshop. Apart from stylistic closeness, their techniques are very similar as well, for example having paint applied thickly, using an oil varnish medium, in shadows and darker garments, but very thinly on flesh areas. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters. The Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a "master", that is to say fully trained, in December 1500. His first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was also named in the commission. It was commissioned in 1500 and finished in 1501; now only some cut sections and a preparatory drawing remain. In the following years he painted works for other churches there, including the Mond Crucifixion (about 1503) and the Brera Wedding of the Virgin (1504), and for Perugia, such as the Oddi Altarpiece. He very probably also visited Florence in this period. These are large works, some in fresco, where Raphael confidently marshals his compositions in the somewhat static style of Perugino. He also painted many small and exquisite cabinet paintings in these years, probably mostly for the connoisseurs in the Urbino court, like the Three Graces and St. Michael, and he began to paint Madonnas and portraits. In 1502 he went to Siena at the invitation of another pupil of Perugino, Pinturicchio, "being a friend of Raphael and knowing him to be a draughtsman of the highest quality" to help with the cartoons, and very likely the designs, for a fresco series in the Piccolomini Library in Siena Cathedral. He was evidently already much in demand even at this early stage in his career. Influence of Florence Raphael led a "nomadic" life, working in various centres in Northern Italy, but spent a good deal of time in Florence, perhaps from about 1504. Although there is traditional reference to a "Florentine period...

An antique pair of Portuguese Baroque hand carved Pinewood architectural wall reliefs with richly ornate detailed scrolls, Acanthus leaves and masks, in good condition. Original pain...

Exceptionally hand-crafted picture frame with station of the cross lithograph by Eugene Jouy 'Editeur'. This handcrafted antique frame is in a style that we have never seen before a...

A pair of 17th century medieval style carved oak panels, sourced from an ex private collection of a 17th century manor in East Anglia. The pair showcase handcarved knights standing ...

Elegant Louis XVI style barometer by Bénard à Provins in gilded and green lacquered wood, carved, decorated with knotted ribbons, foliage and garlands. French work signed Bénard à P...

A fine unique wooden sculptural wall decoration. Hand Carved motifs, made by a Danish Cabinetmaker in the 1970s. Nice texture and dimensions in this vintage piece, it can be used as ...

17th century Italian hand-painted ecclesiastical architectural element adorned with carnelian pebbles, gold-plated crystals, blue and yellow raw agate, and b...

A Palatial and Museum quality Italian 18th century Florentine Rococo gilt wood carved mirror frame. The ornately carved frame with scrolls and a...

Pair of very decorative Antique French Carved Pine Panels featuring center medallions with musical instruments, sheet music and floral/foliate motifs. Framed with raised moldings and carved leafy scrolls. Likely door insets from an Armoire...

Coppia di Fregi Dorati Italiani 1750 circa Intaglio Rococò a Volute, dorate in foglia d'oro su una preparazione di bolo rosso armeno. Sono molto probabilmete cimase di specchiere a...

Early 20th century, good size Art Nouveau wall clock. This antique weather station hand carved and stunning Art Nouveau clock has a beautiful...

Eugène Galien-Laloue (1854-1941) "Theatre du Chatelet" watercolor and gouache on paper signed 'E Galien Laloue' lower left, within a giltwood and gesso c...

19th Century French painted silk of mother of pearl fan, shadow-box framed antique ladies fan, made of mother of pearl with gold leaf on the outer ...

Optional Omniscience & Snake Got You, Diptych, 2019 by Alex Hodge Carved porcelain Overall size: Height: 10 in x Width: 19.5 in x Depth: 0.5 in Optional Omniscience: Height: 10 in x...

Hodge poetic porcelain plates examine and reimagine the history of art in a way that values ​​women not only in body, but in wholeness, power, and love. Focusing on the narrative qua...

1950s Carved Wood African Mask Chip in the back as shown

This is a set of 4 panels of Chinese open carved wooden panels. They were made from Camphor wood which has its unique fragrant and keep the bugs away, solid and sturdy. It features beautiful detailed open carved Chinese traditional...

A large hand carved wood basket of fruit decorative element with silver and gold gilt. Early 19th century, possibly 18th century. The paint is older but not original.

A single, antique Portuguese Baroque architectural wall fragment or sconce made of hand carved partly gilded Pinewood, in good condition. Authentic and naturally aged patina. Minor f...

A beautiful, vintage alabaster handmade plate, framed with glass and gilt wood. Measuring 11.75" wide, 1.63" deep and 10" high. Displayed in a period giltwood frame. Image size, 4 1/...

A 20th century dark-blue abstract still life by Daniel Clesse, painted in Montpellier, France in 1976. Daniel Clesse was a French painter born in 1932, in Paris, France and passed a...

Note: We highly recommend shipping through 1stDibs for its cost effectiveness, full insurance coverage, and reliable handling. While standard parcel services are an option, the defau...

A French 19th Century Louis XV style mirror, carved in Pinewood with Gesso finish and gilded, in good condition. The frame has the typical Rocaille décor. The antique mirror has its ...

French three panel decorative painted canvas folding screen with dogs playing in landscape scenes, perched musical monkeys, and foliage motif. Early 19th century.

Early Giovanni Battista Piranesi Castel Sant'Angelo Veduti Di Roma Wall Décor . Large 18th Century Etching / Engraving Of The Views Of Rome An Early Print View...

A fine vintage Pacific Northwest Native wooden carving. The carving in the form of an hawk with red, black, white, and yellow tones set on a brown wooden board. By William Wasden Jr. Wasden was trained from a very young age in numerous artistic practices of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw peoples including carving, jewelrymaking, and printing. As a high schooler, he began focusing primarily on preserving traditional singing after hearing his grandfather perform. Wasden currently teaches singing in Alert Bay on Cormorant Island, British Columbia. He also heads the Gwa'wina Dancer's Cultural Society, whose mission is to spread authentic Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw culture & teachings. In Kwakwaka'wakw art, human faces are placed strategically on animal carvings to indicate the creature's supernatural ability to transform into a human form. Kwakwaka'wakw origin myths say that their ancestors were originally animals of various kinds who discarded their animal forms and transformed into humans. Simply a wonderful piece of Pacific Northwest Native art...

Lovely Bakery Pie Hand Carved Folk Art Sign. The Age of it is not certain, it was a barn find. It´s a hand carved and painted sign. This pie-shaped sign is such a charming piece—it r...

Mid-Century Modern Medieval Inspired Bas Relief Wall Decoration in Polychromed Carved Wood. Spain, 1950s. Beautifully hand-carved bas relief depicting genre scene. Two standing men f...

Early Giovanni Battista Piranesi Castel Sant'Angelo Veduti Di Roma Wall Decor . Large 18th Century Etching / Engraving Of The Ruins Of Rome An Early Print Of Castle Saint Angelo By G...

A large 19th century Chinese carved wall plaque in wood features a hunting tiger on rocks with bamboo trees and the sun in the background. ...

Hand-carved in France, circa 1880, this wooden bracket console features a wonderfully executed winged angel beneath an angular entablature. The innocent visage of the cherub is augme...

This early 20th-century Flemish low-relief panel showcases the exquisite artistry of pyrography, a technique where designs are burned into wood using a heated tool. Here, two hunting spaniels adorned with studded collars and leashes are meticulously rendered, their lively expressions captured with remarkable detail. Surrounding them is an intricately carved Art Nouveau style frame, adding an extra layer of elegance to the composition. During the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, pyrography experienced a surge in popularity, particularly in Europe and America. Its appeal lay in the ability to create intricate designs with depth and texture, resembling fine etchings or engravings. Pyrography was often employed to decorate furniture, household items, and decorative panels like this one, serving as both functional art and a testament to the skill of the craftsman. Today, pieces like this Flemish panel...

Pair of Pyrographed Panels – The Seasons: Autumn & Winter – Art Nouveau, France, circa 1900 An elegant Belle Époque diptych, this pair of pyrographed panels delicately embodies the...

An oversized antique Asian Buddha head made of hand crafted tropical Hardwood and finished with gilded detailing, in good condition. This large scale wall mounted decorative sculptur...

A hand-carved, hand-painted wooden tribal mask. Hand-carved and painted this decorative mask that would look great in a western or country themed ...

18th Centruy Dutch replica of the Self Portrait of Sir Peter Pail Reubens, original painted by Reubens in 1623, oil on canvas. With original hand carved and gold gilded frame. It has...

Evelyn Ackerman Carved Redwood Panel for Panelcarve, circa 1950s. Features a bird, ram and frog in typical Ackerman style. Measures 36" wide, 12" high and 1" deep. Stamped "copyrig...

Swedish Wooden Hook, circa 1880s Most likely used for hanging hay and has a beautiful smooth patina. Made out of pine wood. Heigth: 33 cm/12.9 inch Depth: 5 cm/1.9 inch Width: 14....

Hand carved during the reign of Louis XVI, this linden wood and oak plaque was originally a boiserie panel that would have adorned the wall of a French manor...

18th century Italian gilded and hand-carved wood tabernacle door with natural forming baroque pearls and tangerine quartz crystal points. This door onc...

Sculptural 18th century Italian gilded fragment artifact with phantom quartz and mounted on raw agate. The piece originally comes from a historical church ...

19th C. Swedish Carved Pine Wood Clock Grandmother Grandfather Long Case Antique . Freestanding hand carved pine wood clock with all the original mechanics and hardware , weights rack...

Large marble figurative relief panel by Pegram English, Early 20th Century Plaque: Height 102cm, width 70cm, depth 9cm Frame: Height 109cm, width 89cm, depth 2cm This bright white...

This large cartouche panel was carved from wood and hand-painted with a central coat of arms in Italy during the 1700’s. Inspired by a 16th century Fr...

A Fine Italian 19th Century Oil Painting on Canvas "La Madonna della Seggiola" after Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino 1483-1520). The circular painted canvas depicting a seated Madonna holding an infant Jesus Christ next to a child Saint John the Baptist, all within a massive carved gilt wood and gesso frame, which is identical to the frame on Raphael's original artwork. This painting is a 19th Century copy of Raphael's Madonna della Seggiola painted in 1514 and currently exhibited and part of the permanent collection at the Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina, Florence, Italy. The bodies of the Virgin, Christ, and the boy Baptist fill the whole picture. The tender, natural looking embrace of the Mother and Child, and the harmonious grouping of the figures in the round, have made this one of Raphael's most popular Madonnas. The isolated chair leg is reminiscent of papal furniture, which has led to the assumption that Leo X himself commissioned the painting. A retailer's label reads " Fred K/ Keer's Sons - Framers and Fine Art Dealers - 917 Broad St. Newark, N.J." - Another label from the gilder reads "Carlo Bartolini - Doratore e Verniciatori - Via Maggio 1924 - Firenze". Circa: 1890-1900. Subject: Religious painting Canvas diameter: 28 inches (71.1 cm) Frame height: 54 inches (137.2 cm) Frame width: 42 1/2 inches (108 cm) Frame depth: 5 1/2 inches (14 cm) Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Italian, March 28 or April 6, 1483 - April 6, 1520), known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop and, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body of work. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. The best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael's more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates. Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region, where his father Giovanni Santi was court painter to the Duke. The reputation of the court had been established by Federico III da Montefeltro, a highly successful condottiere who had been created Duke of Urbino by the Pope - Urbino formed part of the Papal States - and who died the year before Raphael was born. The emphasis of Federico's court was rather more literary than artistic, but Giovanni Santi was a poet of sorts as well as a painter, and had written a rhymed chronicle of the life of Federico, and both wrote the texts and produced the decor for masque-like court entertainments. His poem to Federico shows him as keen to show awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very small court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters. Federico was succeeded by his son Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, who married Elisabetta Gonzaga, daughter of the ruler of Mantua, the most brilliant of the smaller Italian courts for both music and the visual arts. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture. Growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Court life in Urbino at just after this period was to become set as the model of the virtues of the Italian humanist court through Baldassare Castiglione's depiction of it in his classic work The Book of the Courtier, published in 1528. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, and they became good friends. He became close to other regular visitors to the court: Pietro Bibbiena and Pietro Bembo, both later cardinals, were already becoming well known as writers, and would be in Rome during Raphael's period there. Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a full humanistic education however; it is unclear how easily he read Latin. Early Life and Works His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight, followed on August 1, 1494 by his father, who had already remarried. Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven; his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. He probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master. He had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been "a great help to his father". A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity. His father's workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter (d. 1475), and Luca Signorelli, who until 1498 was based in nearby Città di Castello. According to Vasari, his father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice "despite the tears of his mother". The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, and has been disputed—eight was very early for an apprenticeship to begin. An alternative theory is that he received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495.Most modern historians agree that Raphael at least worked as an assistant to Perugino from around 1500; the influence of Perugino on Raphael's early work is very clear: "probably no other pupil of genius has ever absorbed so much of his master's teaching as Raphael did", according to Wölfflin. Vasari wrote that it was impossible to distinguish between their hands at this period, but many modern art historians claim to do better and detect his hand in specific areas of works by Perugino or his workshop. Apart from stylistic closeness, their techniques are very similar as well, for example having paint applied thickly, using an oil varnish medium, in shadows and darker garments, but very thinly on flesh areas. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters. The Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a "master", that is to say fully trained, in December 1500. His first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was also named in the commission. It was commissioned in 1500 and finished in 1501; now only some cut sections and a preparatory drawing remain. In the following years he painted works for other churches there, including the Mond Crucifixion (about 1503) and the Brera Wedding of the Virgin (1504), and for Perugia, such as the Oddi Altarpiece. He very probably also visited Florence in this period. These are large works, some in fresco, where Raphael confidently marshals his compositions in the somewhat static style of Perugino. He also painted many small and exquisite cabinet paintings in these years, probably mostly for the connoisseurs in the Urbino court, like the Three Graces and St. Michael, and he began to paint Madonnas and portraits. In 1502 he went to Siena at the invitation of another pupil of Perugino, Pinturicchio, "being a friend of Raphael and knowing him to be a draughtsman of the highest quality" to help with the cartoons, and very likely the designs, for a fresco series in the Piccolomini Library in Siena Cathedral. He was evidently already much in demand even at this early stage in his career. Influence of Florence Raphael led a "nomadic" life, working in various centres in Northern Italy, but spent a good deal of time in Florence, perhaps from about 1504. Although there is traditional reference to a "Florentine period...