The attribution of this drawing to Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's younger son was first suggested by James Byam Shaw. Another version of the drawing, attributed by George Knox to Raggi, is in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, E. Brugerolles and D. Guillet, op. cit., no. 82. Both sheets are probably based on a lost drawing by Giambattista, similar in composition to his famous etching of the subject Adoration of the Magi (Rizzi, 29).
In a letter to the previous owner Professor Knox suggested that this drawing is a copy by the young Francesco Guardi after a lost Tiepolo drawing and dated it to circa 1732-4.