In June 1563 Taddeo Zuccaro was commissioned to finish the decoration of the chapel of Cardinal Lorenzo Pucci in Santa Trinità dei Monti, Rome left unfinished by Perino del Vaga in the 1520s. He was to paint three frescoes of the life of the Virgin and another of God the Father supporting the Dead Christ. The Pucci chapel was, in turn, left unfinished at Taddeo's death in 1566 and his brother Federico took over the commission. He completed the chapel with frescoes of The Assumption of the Virgin and Augustus and the Sibyl.

Federico's starting point for the composition of the Assumption was the preparatory drawings left by Taddeo. A number of drawings by Taddeo and Federico relating to the composition survive, J. Gere, Taddeo Zuccaro, his development studied in his drawings, London, 1969, nos. 52, 123, 170 and 209 and J. Mundy, Renaissance into Baroque, Italian Master Drawings by the Zuccari 1550-1600, Milwaukee, 1989, nos. 44-6, illustrated. The present drawing relates to the Apostles in the lower left corner of the of the Assumption of the Virgin, J. Mundy, op. cit., fig. 18