It has been suggested that the present drawing could be an early work by Nicolaes Maes comparable with the drawing of A Nude in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, New York, 1984, 7, no. 1765b, or alternatively an early work by Samuel van Hoogstraaten comparable with drawings of seated nudes; formerly in the collection of J. de Bruijn and the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, W. Sumowski, op.cit., New York, 1981, 5, nos. 1250x and 1258x.

Professor Sumowski has associated the present drawing with a painting representing The Flagellation of Christ dated 1658 at Darmstadt. The attribution to Rembrandt of this painting is no longer accepted but it has been proposed that the style and the date of the drawing and the painting are consistent