A young man attending an older kneeling man

This squared study for an unknown composition, possibly Liberation of Saint Peter, is characteristic of Baglione’s highly disciplined technique. Soft tonal hatching and touches of white heightening on coloured paper create a strong sense of plasticity and exceptional descriptive naturalism. The face of the young man is typical of the artist and comparable to figures in the study for Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife in the Alte Pinakothek and The Birth of the Virgin in the British Museum (M. Smith O’Neil, Giovanni Baglione. Artistic Reputation in Baroque Rome, Cambridge, 2002, pls. 84, 88). The physiognomy of the kneeling figure similarly recalls those in Saints Paul and Stephen, now in the Musée Magnin, Dijon (pl. 54), and the preparatory study for Saint Charles Borromeo and Saint Philip Neri in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (pl. 62). Throughout his career, Baglione remained deeply influenced by Raphael, seeking to unite the central Italian tradition of disegno with a colouristic naturalism.