Lot Essay
The present sheet is a study for the head of Saint Joseph in Barocci's Circumcision in the Louvre, A. Emiliani, Federico Barocci, Bologna, 1985, II, pp. 251-63, illustrated p. 250. Signed and dated 1590, it originally was the high altar of the church of the Company of the Name of Jesus in Pesaro. An old record suggests that the artist, who was a notoriously slow and methodical worker, contracted to paint the altarpiece in 1583 (2 October) for the price of 550 scudi. Numerous preparatory drawings for the picture survive, among them another, more evolved study in coloured chalks for the head of Joseph is in the Albertina , A. Emiliani, op. cit., fig. 259