Figure studies (recto); Studies of a temple, helmets, urns and a scroll design, Saint John the Baptist, and a mother and child (verso)

David Rust, who owned this drawing, published a seminal essay on Tamagni ('The drawings of Vincenzo Tamagni da San Gimignano’, in National Gallery of Art: Report and Studies in the History of Art, II, 1968, pp. 71-93). The Sienese artist studied under Sebastiano Maiardi and Sodoma in Siena, and later worked in Raphael's workshop in Rome.

This sheet, containing a somewhat haphazard combination of studies of figures, architectural elements and antique objects, is drawn in Tamagni’s characteristic pen and ink technique. A comparable double-sided drawing is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. 2001.156.3; see Carmen C. Bambach, ‘Tuscan Drawings of the Quattrocento and Cinquecento in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 1998-2005’, in Invisibile agli occhi. Atti della giornata di studio in ricordo di Lisa Venturini, Florence, 2007, pp. 85-86, ill.).