Saint John the Baptist seated in a landscape (recto); The Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist (verso)

The attribution of the present lot is supported by comparison with a drawing of The Council of Nicea which shows the same nervous line, blotchy wash and tremulously attentuated figure types, and which is a design by the artist for a painting in the Hospital de los Venerables in Seville painted by his son Lucas de Valdés (Dessins espagnols, Maîtres des XVI^e et XVII^e siècles, exhib. cat., Louvre, Paris, 1991, no. 101). Duncan Kinkead's catalogue of Valdés Leal's work lists only twelve drawings, not all firmly attributed, with a further four lost or destroyed (D.K. Kinkead, Juan de Valdés Leal