We are grateful to Francesca Baldassari for confirming the attribution of this hitherto unrecorded picture from a transparency; she dates it to the late 1640s and will publish it in her catalogue raisonné of the artist's work, currently printing.

A preparatory drawing, in red chalk with white heightening on green prepared paper and measuring 22.4 x 32cm., is at Lille (exhibited Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, Il Seicento Fiorentino, 21 Dec. 1986-4 May 1987, p. 355, no. 2.321, illustrated, and Lille, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Renaissance et Baroque. Dessins italiens du musée de Lille, 9 Dec. 1989-20 Feb. 1990, p. 148, no. 85, illustrated in colour); although the subject was correctly identified by Carlo del Bravo in 1963 as Jacob asleep, this has since been described as 'Study of a sleeping man'