Loren Partridge first recognised the present drawing to be a study for a picture painted before 1544, now in the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, Fortunati Pietrantonio, op. cit., p. 235, illustrated. The picture, along with two others, is recorded in documents of payment to the artist dated 26 January 1544, A. Mezzetti, Girolamo da Ferrara detto da Carpi. L'opera pittorica, Milan, 1977, pp. 58-9.
The loose handling of the pen and the unfinished type of composition are close to that of a drawing in the Louvre and to the artist's sketchbook sheets in the British Museum, N.W. Canedy, The Roman Sketchbook of Girolamo da Carpi, London, 1976, fig. 1 and pls. 1-54.
Norman Canedy points out Parmigianino's influence on this composition and suggests that Carpi may have found his source in a drawing now in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, A.E. Popham, Catalogue of Drawings by Parmigianino, New Haven and London, 1971, no. 571 verso, pl. 352. Canedy compares the features of Ganymede and the handling of the present drawing to that of Carpi's drawing for Christ with Mary and Martha in the Uffizi, Canedy, op. cit., fig. 32.
Michael Miller in the Woodner catalogue suggested that Niccolò dell'Abbate was in turn influenced by this composition when executing a drawing of the same subject now in the Woodner Collection.