Giacomo Cavedone Sassuolo 1577 - 1660 Bologna

Francesco Giusti, Bologna (catalogue 1862, book iii);
Freiherr Koenig-Fachsenfeld (bears his collector's mark, not in Lugt);
Werner R. Deusch (bears his dry stamp, not in Lugt)

Quite typical of Cavedone's style, this handsome study is related to his elaborate altarpiece in Santa Maria Maggiore, Castel San Pietro, The Madonna and Child in Glory with Sts. Nicholas and Scolastica, Bartholomew and Lawrence and Michael the Archangel, painted around 1620 (see E. Negro and N. Roio, Giacomo Cavedone, Modena 2001, p. 132, cat. 65, reproduced).  A study for the figure of St. Nicholas is in the British Museum (inv. no.1946.7.13.82; see Negro/Roio, op. cit., p. 133, cat. 65.1, reproduced).  In that drawing Cavedone concentrates on the modelling of the drapery in the same way as in the present drawing.  The hands on the verso are definitely related to an Ecce Homo, perhaps the one executed by Cavedone in the same years, 1620-22, for the Oratorio della Buona Morte, Reggio Emilia, but now lost.