Doctor Trude Krautheimer-Hess related the recto to the figure of the Virgin in the fresco of The Virgin attended by Holy Women, swooning at the Foot of the Cross, above the altar of the Mattei Chapel in Santa Maria della Consolazione, Rome, Gere, op. cit., pl. 75. The verso is related to a figure in the right background of Christ washing the Disciples' Feet in the same chapel, Gere, op. cit., pl. 70.
Taddeo worked in the Mattei Chapel between 1553 and 1556. Further drawings related to that chapel are in the Ambrosiana, Milan, and formerly in the Rosenbach Foundation, Gere, op. cit., nos. 127, 211, pls. 45-6. Another drawing for the chapel was sold at Sotheby's, Monaco, 20 June 1987, no. 48, illustrated.
The characteristic handwriting on the verso of the drawing is that of Taddeo's brother Federico. Other inscriptions by Federico are found on a drawing by Taddeo's master Pompeo da Fano sold at Sotheby's, 13 January 1988, lot 76, illustrated, and on a drawing by Cesare Nebbia in the British Museum, J.A. Gere and P. Pouncey, Italian Drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Artists working in Rome, c. 1550 to c. 1640, London, 1983, no. 223, pl. 211.