Seated Faun Holding Cornucopia (recto); Sketch of Tree and House (verso)

Giulio Romano · n.d.

Medium

Brush and brown wash, heightened with white gouache, and graphite (added later) (recto) and graphite (verso) on ivory laid paper, laid down on cream laid paper

Original size

19.8 × 22.8 cm (7 13/16 × 9 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Mannerism

This drawing captures Giulio Romano's mastery of the classical grotesque — a mythological faun rendered with commanding weight and studied ease, the cornucopia balanced with an almost theatrical naturalness. Romano was Raphael's most gifted pupil and principal assistant, inheriting his workshop after Raphael's death in 1520. Where his master favored serenity, Romano pushed toward a more muscular, dramatic sensibility that became a defining quality of Italian Mannerism. Works like this demonstrate his fluid command of wash technique — building volume through layered brown tones and then pulling light forward with white gouache, a method that gives the figure a sculptural presence rarely achieved in works on paper. The graphite lines visible across the composition were added at a later date by a different hand, giving the sheet a fascinating layered history — two separate moments of mark-making preserved together across centuries. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates Romano's characteristic interplay of warm shadows and bright highlights into a medium that honors the original's depth and drama, bringing this rare study out of the archive and onto the wall where it can be properly seen.