A drawing of a nude male figure, seated, with his legs turned half to the right; with loose drapery about his shoulders and groin; with his right hand resting on a lyre. This is a developed study for the figure of Apollo in The Head and Lyre of Orpheus thrown into the River Ebro, a fresco in the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati. RCIN 900658 is an earlier study for the figure of Apollo in the same fresco.  

There are three studies for this fresco, in the Royal Collection: RCINs 900657, 900658, 901148.      

Commissioned at the insistence of Monsignor Agucchi by Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini for the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati, the ten Scenes from the Legend of Apollo are attributed by the biographer Giovan Pietro Bellori to the period immediately prior to that at which Domenichino began work on the Grottaferrata frescoes, and were thus in all probability completed in or before 1608. It is recorded that Domenichino was assisted in the execution of the frescoes by Alessandro Fortuna and by Viola, who is traditionally supposed to have helped in the painting of the landscape backgrounds in the scenes.            

Eight of the ten frescoes were removed to the Lanckoronski Palace in Vienna, and are now in the National Gallery, London. Two of the frescoes, Apollo slaying the Serpent Python, and The Head and Lyre of Orpheus thrown into the River Ebro, remain in the Villa Aldobrandini.