Lot Essay
Andrea Emiliani, in a letter dated 14 November 1995, confirms the attribution to Barocci and dates the Krautheimer drawing to Barocci's early career, proposing that it is a project for an unexecuted work.
E.P. Pillsbury and L.S. Richards in the Cleveland catalogue compared the drawing to one in the British Museum, datable to the 1560s, a study for a picture mentioned by Bellori in Fossombrone, A. Emiliani, Mostra Federico Barocci, exhib. cat., Museo Civico, Bologna, 1975, no. 323, illustrated. Other drawings comparable in handling are the Madonna in Glory in the Louvre, the Calling of Saint Andrew at Windsor Castle and a study for The Rest on the Flight into Egypt in the Uffizi, A. Emiliani, op. cit., nos. 82, 128 and 53, illustrated. All these drawings share with the present one a broad use of white heightening and a wiry penwork.
E.P. Pillsbury and L.S. Richards in the Cleveland catalogue compared the drawing to one in the British Museum, datable to the 1560s, a study for a picture mentioned by Bellori in Fossombrone, A. Emiliani, Mostra Federico Barocci, exhib. cat., Museo Civico, Bologna, 1975, no. 323, illustrated. Other drawings comparable in handling are the Madonna in Glory in the Louvre, the Calling of Saint Andrew at Windsor Castle and a study for The Rest on the Flight into Egypt in the Uffizi, A. Emiliani, op. cit., nos. 82, 128 and 53, illustrated. All these drawings share with the present one a broad use of white heightening and a wiry penwork.