A watercolour and bodycolour drawing by Giuseppe Manocchi reproducing the decoration of a corner from the vault of the fourth bay of the Loggia, designed by Raphael and executed by his workshop (c.1517-19), in the Vatican. Within a triple ruled border in ink. On two sheets of paper joined together. Signed and dated by Manocchi along bottom: "Soffitto delle Vaticano Io Giuseppe Manocchi Romano 1769".

Manocchi was an Italian draughtsman who is known to have worked in the London office of the architects Robert and James Adam in the late 1760s and early 1770s. The Royal Collection holds a group of c.30 ornamental ceiling and grotesque drawings by him; a much larger body of work, of similar subjects though dated earlier than those here, is held at Sir John Soane's Museum.

The repeating sequence of decoration in the Loggia - see Dacos 2008 (Bibliographic References) for more information - is strongly influenced by the antique; Raphael had studied antique sculpture and painting in Rome.