This and the following lot are both in their original Roman frames. Edgar Peters Bowron wrote of such pastels: 'Luti produced intermittently throughout his career highly finished drawings and pastels for the trade. These fresh and luminous studies of heads and bust-length figures are historically significant as among the first of their kind to be created and appreciated strictly as independent works of art rather than as preparatory studies for a canvas or fresco', E.P. Bowron, Benedetto Luti's Pastels and Coloured Chalk Drawings, Apollo, June, 1980, pp. 440-7. Such studies must have inspired pastels by his pupil Creccolini, such as those sold in these Rooms, 11 December 1990, lots 42-3, both illustrated