Head of Noah, from the Vine Angle

Raffaele Carloforti first encountered Ruskin at Assisi in 1874. Two years later, Ruskin referred to him as “a youth whom I am maintaining in art study in Venice”, and he commissioned him for copies of paintings and sculpture. Like all such surviving work, this drawing bears a faithful inscription 'Suo Disciepolo Ubbidiente, Raffaele Carloforti" (‘His obedient disciple’).

Ruskin presumably directed Carloforti towards this sculpture, which he thought was inspired by the figure of St Simeon in the Church of San Simeon Grande: “The head of Noah has the same profusion of flowing hair and beard, but wrought in smaller and harder curls.” (Stones of Venice, Volume II) Noah is slumped in drunkenness, but watched over by two angels: in this, as in the depiction of Adam and Eve in the corresponding Fig Tree Angle of the Palace, Ruskin observed “the simple expression of two feelings, the consciousness of human frailty, and the dependence upon Divine guidance and protection.”