The unbelieving Thomas, ca. 1510 – 1514

About the Work

This version of the Incredulity of Thomas – presumably executed as the final working drawing for a bronze relief in the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria della Pace in Rome – was gone over in the eighteenth century in an effort to preserve it. We must therefore look very closely to detect what remains of Raphael’s original silverpoint drawing on pink prepared paper. In the process, we discover that he not only supplied the contours of the figures – who are arranged in a manner suitable for a relief –, but also modelled them with hatching.