Studies of a cardinal and of hands and a head

The two hands in the upper right corner are preparatory for the Madonna and Child, an oil painting of which several versions are known. An octagonal version is in the Louvre, Paris (inv. MR402), while a roundel of the same composition was in the Cook collection which was subsequently sold at Christie's, London, 8 December 2005, lot 18. A third, rectangular version, was with Brian Koetser Gallery in 1973. Sassoferrato copied the composition, with slight variations, from Raphael's Madonna del Libro from circa 1503-4, now in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg (inv. GS 252).

The technique and the detailed subsidiary studies of hands are very characteristic for Sassoferrato's drawings and can be compared to a number of sheets in the Royal Collection, Windsor (inv. nos. 906102, 906089 and 906101; A.F. Blunt and H.L. Cooke, The Italian Drawings at Windsor Castle: The Roman Drawings of the XVII and XVIII Centuries in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, London, 1960, nos. 897, 920 and 928).