A nude gesturing to the left, with subsidiary studies of the legs and feet (recto); A female nude seated on a rock in profile to the right (verso)

Dr. Roger Ward confirmed the attribution of the present drawing in a letter to the owner dated 22 December 1998. Dr. Ward pointed out that the figure on the recto assumes a stock Bandinelli pose which he used from the mid-1550s. It appears, for example, in the figure of Mercury in the engraving of The Combat of the Gods (B. XV, 262.44) by Beatrizet after Bandinelli or in a drawing at Christ Church, Oxford (R. Ward, Baccio Bandinelli, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, 1988, no. 43 and fig. 29) .
This drawing was executed by Bandinelli on a slightly trimmed sheet of reçute size (450 x 315 mm.), his favourite format, R. Ward, op. cit., p. 28. Even during his own lifetime, Bandinelli's drawings were praised as among his best achievements. Vasari, who very critical towards the man, could not avoid mentioning that he was one of the best draughtsmen of his period. Bandinelli, with his usual arrogance, knew it and used this type of large drawing to impress his patrons. Other examples of drawings of this size are illustrated in R. Ward, op. cit., nos. 9-10, 16, 29, 35, 39, 40-2.