A preparatory study for part of a series of frescoes in bronze chiaroscuro painted by Bartolomeo and Girolamo Faccini in the courtyard of the castello at Ferrara, depicting two hundred ancestors of the Duke Alfonso II of Este. The commission originated from a genealogical contest between the families of Este and Medici which embittered diplomatic relations between Rome and the Empire from 1541 until the death of Duke Alfonso II, in 1587.

Pirro Ligorio entered the service of the Duke in 1568 as a court antiquary. Each of his drawings shows two princes of the family. Twenty four sheets are in the Ashmolean, four in Munich, two in the Uffizi and single sheets are in Stuttgart, the Metropolitan and in Princeton