A preparatory drawing for the etching, in reverse, of 1661 (Bartsch 2), R.W. Wallace The Etchings of Salvator Rosa, Princeton, 1979, no. 100. The drawing differs from the print most evidently in the background where the blasted trees are replaced by a rocky cliff.

Mahoney suggested that this is a copy after a lost preparatory drawing of the first half of the early 1650s. Wallace subsequently accepted the drawing as a preparatory study for the etching. The quality of the drawing, particularly the assured and energetic penwork and pentimenti such as the outline of the rock at the lower left, seem consistent with other drawings of the period. The drawing is similar in handling to the group of studies from the Odescalchi collection sold at Galerie Gerda Bassenge, Berlin, M. Mahoney, op. cit., nos. 38.1-11, illustrated.

The etching of Albert forms a pair with Saint William of Maleval (Bartsch 1). Saint William, who died in 1157, visited the Holy Land in 1153-4 and withdrew to a valley near Siena to subject himself to physical hardship. His disciple Albert joined him in 1156. Rosa's treatment of the bound figure is inspired by the Roman sculpture of Marsyas, now in the Uffizi, P.P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture, Oxford, 1986, no. 32, illustrated