Three standing male figures, one bearing a vessel

The attribution to Perino del Vaga was made by Linda Wolk-Simon (op. cit.) and confirmed by Hugo Chapman. Wolk-Simon dates the drawing to the beginning of the 1520s, Perino’s early Roman period. The scholar compared the present study with a pen drawing of Saint Peter in the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown (inv. 2003.9.2; see Renaissance and Baroque Drawings from the Collection of John and Alice Steiner, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard Art Museums, 1977, no. 33, ill.). After the death of Raphael in 1520, Perino established himself as an independent master, developing an individual stylistic language that became characteristic of his mature graphic output (see for instance The Cleansing of the Temple, at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, inv. NMH 256/1973; see Perino del Vaga tra Raffaello e Michelangelo, exhib. cat., Mantua, Palazzo Te, 2001, no. 139, ill.).

In the first half of the 1520s Perino worked on the decoration of several chapels in various Roman churches. While the present study cannot be connected with any specific commission, Wolk-Simon suggested that it may have been made in preparation for an Adoration of the Magi (op. cit., p. 27). The turbaned male figure in the forefront, holding a vessel, can easily be identified as one of the Magi. The two figures behind him could be the other Magi or bystanders witnessing the presumed Adoration.