How does Jonah (Lorenzetto) elucidate its Description?
The statue was carved from marmor lunensis, antique Carrara marble, which has a delicate yellowish tone. The material has a high quality, and Pirro Ligorio claimed that the statue was carved from a block fallen from the Temple of Castor and Pollux, at the time thought to be the Temple of Jupiter Stator.The figure of Jonah is nude and youthful, he is seated on the sea monster, with his right foot on its lower jaw, and with his left hand he holds a drapery above his head. His look and posture is triumphant. The present position of the statue is unfavourable, it was clearly intended to be seen from the left. The contemporary drawing in Windsor shows it from this angle. Another evidence is a tondo in the Vatican loggias which was probably painted after a sketch of Raphael. In its originally intended - but probably never occupied - position in the niche to the right of the altar the prophet would have been looking down towards the aperture of the crypt under the chapel in front of the altar (this opening in the floor was later walled up by Bernini), and faced the entering visitor.
At first Bernini planned to move the statue to its intended place as documented by a drawing in the Smith College Museum of Art but later he changed his mind, and gave this important niche to his own statue depicting Habakkuk.
The head of the statue may have been inspired by the famous Antinous Farnese, an ancient Roman statue of Antinous, the lover of Hadrian, who committed suicide in Egypt. This is another, although less obvious, allusion to Egypt in the chapel besides the pyramidal tombs and the lotus cymatium of the entrance arch.The head of Jonah was first identified as an Antinous by the art historian Giovanni Pietro Bellori in 1695. It is unsure that Raphael and his circle identified the features as Antinous or they simply copied a beautiful antique head for the purpose of showing the youthful Jonah. In the middle of the 16th century there were at least 12 statues of Antinous in Roman collections but we have no certain information about the whereabouts of the Antinous Farnese in the 1510s.
Raphael right Antinous Farnese Vatican loggias Hadrian left Egypt Jonah Giovanni Pietro Bellori Antinous Temple of Castor and Pollux Pirro Ligorio cymatium