The Moscardo album contained a substantial group of drawings by Veronese, Paduan and Venetian artists of the 15th and early 16th centuries. It was assembled about 1500, as is indicated by an inscription on the flyleaf, now at the Institut Néelandais.

The drawing is closely related to Bonsignori's painting of this subject formerly at Berlin, as Mr. Byam Shaw pointed out. The handling of the present sheet, showing the powerful influence of Mantegna and perhaps the rather hard touch of the engraver, and its close but not slavish relationship to the picture, in particular the facial type and idiosyncratic treatment of hands and feet, indicate that it is a preparatory study by Bonsignori himself. No figure drawing has been conclusively attributed to the artist, but his style as portrait draughtsman is established by the study in the Albertina, inv. no. 17672, for the portrait of a man of 1487 in the National Gallery, no 736