New analysis of a pair of drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, made by Raphael for his ‘Virgin and Child with a book’ in the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, has confirmed that they were cut from a single sheet and has shown that they have been trimmed, allowing the landscape study they contain to be properly understood for the first time. Together with related drawings they provide important evidence of Raphael’s earliest encounters with Florentine art.
