Dr. Jennifer Montagu at the time of the 1986 sale pointed out that this drawing represents Cardinal Egidio Canisio of Viterbo watching his library being stolen from Rome by the Imperial troops. As Dr. Montagu observed, the composition was followed in the frescoed decoration of the Sala Grande of Palazzo Spada, Rome, by Angelo Michele and Agostino Mitelli, L. Neppi, Palazzo Spada, Rome, 1975, fig. 1. The horizontal line about 15mm. from the top of the drawing corresponds with the top edge of the fresco and there can be little doubt that the drawing is preparatory for this. Cardinal Bernadino Spada, for whom the decoration was undertaken, favoured the Bolognese school and is recorded to have secured designs for the Sala Grande from Guercino. No drawing of comparable character by Colonna or Mitelli are known and it seems likely therefore that this drawing was executed by Reni, no doubt when Spada was legate at Bologna in 1627-31. Reni's full length portrait of Spada, executed in 1630-1, is in the Palazzo Spada, D.S. Pepper, Guido Reni, Oxford, 1984, no. 129, pl. 157