A preparatory study for a section of a frieze on the south wall of the Sala degli Dei in the Palazzo Giuliari in Verona, D. DeGrazia Bohlin, Paolo Farinati in the Palazzo Giuliari: Frescoes and Preparatory Drawings, Master Drawings, 1982, XX, figs. 8-9. The fresco scheme is, on stylistic grounds, dated by Bohlin to the late 1560s or early 1570s. The size and importance of the commission, a painted frieze running around the upper walls of the three rooms of the piano nobile, is reflected in the number of detailed preparatory studies complete with scales and identifying inscriptions, D. DeGrazia Bohlin, op. cit., pls. 1-9. The surviving drawings give some indication of the artist's working methods, from a sketchy pen and ink study of individual figures, such as the Two River Goddesses at the Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (also with a Gibson number on the verso), to finished studies, such as the present example, which are mostly drawn on blue paper.
William Gibson (1645-1703) was a miniature painter who learned his art from Sir Peter Lely. He was also a noted collector and bought a number of drawings from the latter's sale in 1688, although he must have bought the Farinati drawings at the Lankrink sale, five years after Lely's death. The prices on the versi of the drawings are those left by Gibson for the use of his widow, as was noted by Richardson in the margin of the London Library copy of his Works, F.J.B. Watson, On the early History of Collecting in England, The Burlington Magazine, LXXXV, p. 224. A significant number of Farinati drawings belonged to all three collections, and it is possible that they were part of an album originally bought by Lely.