The present drawing, which has an old inscription attributing it to Bertani, is comparable to the only securely connectable drawing by the artist, now in the Rhode Island School of Design, D.J. Johnson, Old Master Drawings, exhib. cat., Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 1983, no. 3, illustrated. The Rhode Island drawing was used for an engraving by Giorgio Ghisi of Hercules and the Hydra, the frontispiece of Bertani's Gli oscuri e difficili passi dell'opera ionica di Vitruvio published in Mantua in 1558. The penwork, very much inspired by that of Giulio Romano, is very close. The hatching, particularly the variation in length and direction, is also very similar.
Bertani was a painter and an architect from Mantua who worked with Giulio Romano from 1531. His first documented work is the exterior decoration of the Palazzina Paleoga in the Ducal Palace. He succeeded Giulio as the main architect in Mantua. His major commissions were the Ducal Palace and the Church of Santa Barbara.
The present drawing was probably intended for a trompe l'oeil figure in a fresco in one of the Gonzaga palaces or a temporary decoration. Such fictive sculptures were a common feature of Giulio's decorative schemes, such as those in the Sala dei Cavalli in the Palazzo del Té, K. Oberhuber (ed.), Giulio Romano, exhib. cat., Palazzo del Té, Mantua, 1989, p. 341, illustrated.