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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Portrait of a Youth ca. 1615 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Portrait of a Youth ca. 1625-30 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Portrait of a Youth ca. 1630-50 drawing British Museum |
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Portrait of a Young Man ca. 1620-30 drawing British Museum |
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Portrait of a Young Man 1630 drawing Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Académie ca. 1620-30 drawing Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden |
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Académie ca. 1630 drawing Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin |
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Académie ca. 1630 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Académie ca. 1640-50 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Académie ca. 1670-75 drawing Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin |
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| attributed to Gianlorenzo Bernini Académie ca. 1620-50 drawing Musée du Louvre |
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| attributed to Gianlorenzo Bernini Académie ca. 1620-50 drawing Musée du Louvre |
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| attributed to Gianlorenzo Bernini Académie ca. 1620-50 drawing Musée du Louvre |
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| Anonymous copyist after Gianlorenzo Bernini Self Portrait 17th century drawing (copy of lost original, ca. 1630) Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Self Portrait ca. 1635-38 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
"But the same year Caravaggio left Rome [1606] a sculptor named Pietro Bernini arrived in the city, and it was his son Gian Lorenzo Bernini, still a boy at the time, who was later to dominate Roman art with his flair and versatile genius. . . . As he was growing up Gian Lorenzo Bernini must have come into close contact with the artists working with his father in the Capella Paolina [at the Vatican, within the Apostolic Palace]. His son Domenico relates in his biography of his father that Gian Lorenzo went to the Vatican every day with his drawing block, and that he often forgot to come home for meals. He seems to have been particularly attracted by the Apollo Belvedere and the Laocoön group, but he also studied what he could see of the paintings in the papal palace. Of great importance to Gian Lorenzo's future was the fact that thanks to his father's connections, he was noticed by Scipione Borghese, who immediately realised the young man's exceptional talent. It is said that when he was only eight years old he modelled a head so skillfully that all were amazed, and that on another occasion he was asked to demonstrate his artistic skill before the pope by drawing the head of an apostle. This second story could be true, but is probably only a legend inspired by Vasari's story of the youthful Giotto. But we do know that Gian Lorenzo Bernini's connection with the Borghese family began in the Capella Paolina."
– Torgil Magnuson, Rome in the Age of Bernini (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1982)