[ORIGINAL WATERCOLOUR] 'PHILOSOPHY'

Tondo watercolour and gilt painting on paper after Raphael's ceiling fresco representing 'Philosophy', depicting an allegorical female figure sat upon an elaborate marble throne with carved ancient symbols, her clothes decorated with different designs emblematic of the four elements (air, fire, water, and earth), in her hands are two books signifying the two main fields of her discipline: 'Naturalis' and 'Moralis'; she is flanked on either side by putti holding tablets inscribed "Causarum" and "Cognitio", standing upon a ground of clouds with a gilt background. 30 cm in diameter. Laid down to period card and contained within a nineteenth-century gilt card mount (47.5 x 40.5 cm). There is a very minor white dot to the foot of the clouds and some light foxing, otherwise the painting is in very good condition. A highly-accomplished mid-nineteenth-century copy of Raphael's medallion representing the Allegory of 'Philosophy' on the ceiling of the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Palace, originally executed in 1509-11. Initially commissioned by Pope Julius II, the medallion was one of four created by Raphael for what is thought to have been the Pope's library, with the quartet representing the four areas of knowledge (theology, poetry, philosophy and jurisprudence).…