The present sheet, with two quick studies of female heads, has been associated in the past with two important Venetian masters: it bears an old attribution to Titian on the verso, and in more recent times was given to Tintoretto, when in the collection of Johann Georg, Prince of Saxony (1869-1938).

Recently, Marco Ciampolini has proposed an attribution to Sodoma,1 while pointing out parallels with the graphic style of Domenico Beccafumi (1486-1551), especially in the essential and effective description of both female physiognomies. These are achieved with great economy of line and with thick, bold strokes. The reassured use of the red chalk is characterized by parallel strokes in the main head that define the areas of shadow, while the secondary head is mainly only outlined. Here the shadows are indicated solely around the eyes, giving intensity to her gaze.

Ciampolini has suggested that the style of the present sheet is typical of Sodoma's maturity, when the artist was more under the influence of Beccafumi, an influence that was especially noticeable in the 1540s, the last decade of Sodoma’s life. Moreover, he has proposed a connection with Sodoma’s final work, The Birth of the Virgin (fig. 1), in the church of San Niccolò al Carmine, Siena. The panel, mentioned by Vasari in the sacristy of 'de'frati del Carmine' ('the friars of the Carmine'), is in the Cappella del Santissimo Sacramento.2 The heads in the present drawing would seem to be preparatory for the figures of St. Anne and of the maid holding a dish of soup just facing her. The St. Anne, seen both in the drawing and in the painting as simultaneously suffering and thankful, has her mouth opened as if about to utter some words of comfort, and in the drawing she clearly looks towards the servant.

Fig. 1 Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma, The Birth of the Virgin, (detail) c.1537, San Niccolò al Carmine, Siena

This sheet is an important addition to the corpus of Sodoma's drawings, and vital to the understanding of his late style.

1.Correspondence with the owner dated 12 January 2025

2.Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de' più eccellenti Pittori Scultori ed Architettori…, ed. G. Milanesi, Florence 1881, vol. VI, p. 390; for the same church Beccafumi had started the Fall of the rebel Angels, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, which was left unfinished, though Beccafumi completed a version of the same subject for San Niccolò al Carmine in 1526