A drawing formerly in the Ambrosiana in Milan, now lost, shows a composition virtually identical to the present one, though reversed, F. Hartt, Giulio Romano, New Haven, 1958, no. 317, fig. 352. On both sheets four putti are similarly placed around a cornucopia, but compared to the present drawing, the Milan sheet is larger and shows, on the right side, a sphinx attached with a strap to the cornucopia. The cornucopia in the Krautheimer drawing is similarly attached with a strap, and on the left edge of the sheet are the four paws of a sphinx. In the absence of the exact measurements of the Ambrosiana sheet, not recorded by Hartt, one can only suggest that the present drawing may have been part of the same sheet as the Milan one.
Under the sphinx in the Milan drawing is a stone arch, barely visible at the left of the kneeling putti on the present sheet, indicating that this must have been a design to be placed over a feigned niche or to be used as an overdoor. Hartt dated the Milan drawing to the first half of the 1530s, at the time when Giulio was working in the Sala dei Cavalli and the Sala di Psyche in the Palazzo Ducale, Mantua, Hartt, op. cit., p. 226.