Attributed to Andrea Commodi

Laid down on an old mount. There is an old horizontal crease running across the lower section of the sheet and some small areas of surface dirt to the lower left and right edges. The black chalk remains very fresh and the stumping used by the artist is far more evident in reality than appears in the catalogue reproduction. The sheet itself is also in fine condition and is not yellowed or stained, as the catalogue reproduction suggests. Sold in an oak frame.
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Evidently drawn from life, this striking study can be associated stylistically with the free and abstract handling that characterizes the great majority of Commodi's known drawings, independent works executed for their own sake, and not connected or related to any of the artist's paintings.  Commodi seems to have made these drawings largely as a private exercise, recording people around him, often with the most incredibly modern eye; in many cases, it is hard to imagine that these drawings are the work of an artist born in the sixteenth century. 

The name of Caravaggio, found here in the attribution inscribed on the old mount, is one that observers have often mentioned when noting the unique spontaneity and directness of Commodi's drawn images,¹ although these qualities are only one side of the artist's style; he was also capable of executing more refined drawings and pastels, in keeping with his Florentine upbringing and tradition.  One hallmark of his style, very evident in the present sheet, is the widespread use of strong, short, and close strokes of chalk, often employed to outline and strengthen forms and contours, and ultimately to define the areas of shadows.  These strokes create dramatic contrasts, enhancing the effect of the chiaroscuro, and contributing, as here, to the directness of the image and the strength of its visual impact.  Closely comparable in style is a black chalk study of an archer, in the Uffizi, and the artist also sometime used the same short strokes when working in pen and ink.² 

For a more extensive account of Commodi's drawings from life, see Gianni Papi, Andrea Commodi, Florence 1994, pp. 154-162.

¹ Gianni Papi, Andrea Commodi, Florence 1994, pp. 154-155
² Inv. no. GDSU, 17840 F; Papi, op.cit., reproduced fig. 57; for an example executed in pen and ink see: inv. no. GDSU, 18630 F; ibid., reproduced fig. 79