This is part of a series of drawings close in handling representing the same boy, two of which are in the British Museum (J.A. Gere and P. Pouncey, Italian Drawings in the British Museum, Artists working in Rome c. 1550 to c. 1640, London, 1983, nos. 312-3, pl. 301), one at Windsor Castle (A.E. Popham and J. Wilde, The Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle, London, 1949, no. 1043), and another in the Louvre, R. Bacou, Le Seizième Siècle Européen, Paris, 1965, no. 133, illustrated.
On the recto of one of the drawings in the British Museum is a portrait of Vincenzo Borghini who designed the scheme of Zuccaro's frescoes in the Duomo in Florence, painted in 1575-9. The group of portraits is therefore datable to these years.
The attribution to Federico Zuccaro was confirmed by James Mundy and John Gere.