Saint John the Baptist and a female Saint holding a Palm with the Madonna of Loreto above: Study for an Altarpiece and surrounding Frame

Terence Mullaly has kindly confirmed the attribution. The drawing is comparable with the modello at Chatsworth, M. Jaff, The Devonshire Collection of Italian Drawings, Venetian and North Italian Schools, London, 1994, no. 745, illustrated. The Chatsworth drawing recalls the present study in the extensive use of white heightening, and the similarity of the physical types, particularly between Saint Sebastian and John the Baptist. The drawing may well have been intended to have been shown to the patron, as the artist has drawn alternative orders for the flanking pilasters. The frieze above is decorated with ecclesiastical instruments: candlesticks, a censer, a chalice, an incense burner, and two missals.