A typical late black chalk study by Pietro da Cortona, this sheet bears a traditional attribution to the artist. Although the young man holding a dish cannot be directly related to any known painting, a rather similar figure occurs in an earlier canvas, dated 1631, Sacrifice to Diana, formerly in the Palazzo Barberini but now lost (fig. 1).¹ Broadly and vigorously executed, indicating clear areas of light and shade, the style of this drawing is characteristic of Cortona's late period and can be compared with a number of other studies, for instance two drawings of single figures, executed in the same media, which relate to the mosaic pendentives after Cortona's designs in St. Peter’s in Rome, a decoration commissioned from the artist by Pope Innocent X, Pamphili in 1652.²

In the present work, the three-quarter-length figure occupies the entirety of the sheet, conveying a certain monumentality and a three dimensional quality that can be seen in other drawings dating from the 1650s. See for example another study in the Louvre for a seated female figure which, according to Jörg Martin Merz, could be a first idea for the figure of Sta. Martina in Cortona’s fresco decoration in the choir of the Chiesa Nuova, Rome (1655-1659).³

We are most grateful to Dr Merz, who, from the basis of a digital image, has confirmed the attribution to Pietro da Cortona and has suggested a possible dating to the artist's late period, c.1650 or 1660.

^1. The painting was in the Barberini collection until 1934. It was sold during the Second World War to Hitler, and it is now lost. See G. Briganti, Pietro da Cortona, Florence 1962, pp. 254-255, reproduced fig. 265

^2. Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. nos. 540 and 546; see B. Gady, Pietro da Cortona, Milan 2011, p. 75, nos. 37, 38, reproduced figs. 37, 38

^3. Paris, Musée du Louvre inv. no. 533; see Gady, op. cit., pp. 73-74, fig. 33