Copy after Raphael's Vatican Loggia Fresco : Joseph Reconciled with His Brothers

One of a series of eight drawings copying the now barely visible monochrome frescoes on the Vatican Loggias or Long Gallery. These were painted by Raphael's pupils and his workshop after his designs. The Gallery is divided up into 13 square vaults, with four frescoes within each vault. It was commissioned by a member of the Medici family, Pope Leo X, whose biography in English was first written by William Roscoe, one of the owners of this drawing. The Walker's drawings are in the same arrangement as Bartoli's engravings of the frescoes in the Vatican. WAG 1995.225 is a copy of the frieze on the seventh bay of the Loggia. It depicts the Old Testament scene when the young Joseph forgives his brothers who had sold him into slavery in Egypt (Genesis Chapter 45 verses 1-5).