• The Italian Renaissance painter, Raphael painted a Self-Portrait of himself between the years 1504 and 1506. The medium used is oil on board. The painting measures forty seven and a half by thirty three centimetres. Currently, this painting is housed at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. This painting is considered as the clearest or most recognizable depiction of Raphael himself. For a time, the paining had been under scrutiny as a copy of it emerged inside a bank vault. The two paintings are quite identical so that it is sure to raise some debates in the art scene. The Self Portrait may be on display for the 1st time. However, it is not completely new to art historians as its existence can be traced even as far back as 1885.

• The portrait was noted in an inventory of the private collection of Duke Leopoldo de' Medici, completed in 1675, and later listed in the 1890 Uffizi inventory.

• The controversial Self-Portrait in the Uffizi is very similar to the Blessing Christ, but its poor state of conservation has prevented critics from attributing it objectively and definitively to Raphael. Nevertheless, many art historians consider it a work from the Florentine period. The soft light which pervades the portrait certainly recalls Leonardo, but the restless and problematic elements which Leonardo's complex figurative research present are absent. The intense representation of the youth shows no sign of internal tension. On the contrary, it communicates a serene observation of reality through a pictorial rendering rich in synthetic capacity.

• Recent technical tests have brought to light the drawing underneath, confirming that it is indeed an authentic self-portrait, painted around 1506. From the collection of Cardinal Leopoldo de Medici; at the Uffizi since 1682.