Studies of a child, standing and kneeling on one knee, and a further study of his left foot

A study for the two children at lower left in The Virgin and Child with Saint John Nepomuk, a painting datable circa 1743, in the Pinacoteca, Musei Vaticani, Vatican City (E.P. Bowron, Pompeo Batoni. A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, New Haven and London, 2016, I, no. 84, ill.). Edgar Peters Bowron has suggested that the 'finish and precision' of the painting means it served as a modello for the altarpiece in Santa Maria della Pace, Brescia (ibid., no. 85, ill.). A more detailed drawing of the standing boy, now holding the banner as in the painting, was sold at Farsettiarte, Prato, 21 November 2009, lot 284, and a study of Saint John Nepomuk is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie, Besançon (inv. D 1014; A.M. Clark, op. cit., no. D 35). The figure of the Christ Child is studied in a sheet which was, like the present one, formerly in the collection of the Countess Finckenstein (ibid., no. D 321).