A seated youth reading, his head resting on his right hand

Similar in handling to a drawing in red chalk of Zacharias for the cupola of Piacenza Cathedral, D. Mahon and N. Turner, The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge, 1989, no. 38, fig. 39. The present drawing, of approximately the same size as the Windsor sheet, might be an early study for the same figure. Guercino worked on the cupola at Piacenza between May 1626 and November 1627, following the death of Morazzone, who had already completed two of the eight compartments.
Sir Denis Mahon has kindly confirmed the attribution to Guercino, dating the drawing of the time of the Piacenza commission.