Attributed to Lorenzo Costa Mantua 1537 - 1583

The close debt to the artistic tradition of Perugino and certain peculiarities in the physiognomy of the figure such as the elongated body and the generous forehead indicate an artist such as Lorenzo Costa.  Our knowledge of drawings by this rather rare draughtsman is based mostly on his pen and ink studies and it appears that no red chalk drawings by him have so far been identified.  Costa was born in Ferrara around 1460.  His artistic personality reflects the interest in humanism shared by other painters of the Renaissance.  He worked in several important artistic centres of his time: Ferrara and Bologna and finally Mantua, where he died in 1535, apparently overshadowed by the fame of Giulio Romano.