Parmigianino first drew the study on the recto. He then cut this across the centre and attached the lower section to the left of the upper part of the figure study. The position of the collector's marks establishes that the sheets remained in this state during the ownership of Lely and Richardson, and was then reconstituted, sacrificing a section in the centre of the verso, presumably for Reynolds

The recto is a preparatory study for the figure of Joseph of Arimathea, who features prominently in the foreground of Parmigianino's etching of the Entombment. This exists in two versions (Bartsch XVIII, p. 300, no. 46 and XVI, p. 8, no. 5) in opposite directions, and the present drawing corresponds with the former, earlier etching. It is even closer, especially in the disposition of the legs, to another preliminary drawing for the Entombment at Darmstadt, A.E. Popham, Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino, New Haven and London, 1971, I, no. 62, II, pl. 159. Whereas the artist almost invariably eschewed nude studies, the present drawing represents a comparatively rare example of him devising the attitude of an individual figure, with the help of a posed studio assistant. Although Joseph of Arimathea was always intended to be bearded and heavily draped, his bared forward leg remained a feature of the finished design