The largest group of Sassoferrato's drawings is at Windsor, A. Blunt and H.L. Cooke, The Roman Drawings of the XVII & XVIII Centuries in the Collection of her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, London, 1960, nos. 873-932. Most of the Windsor drawings are of a very finished type and squared, similarly to the present study, but only half of them can be related to known works. Two other unrelated sheets from the Earl of Plymouth's collection were sold in these Rooms, 1 July 1986, lots 129-30, illustrated.
Sassoferrato did not paint many altarpieces and worked mainly on small devotional pictures for private patrons. The present drawing is probably related to such a commission; its composition suggests that the finished work would have been oval.