The attribution to Federico was first proposed by Konrad Oberhuber. In the 1986 exhibition catalogue, Gail Davidson suggested that the drawing must date to the mid to late 1570s, when Federico was in Florence. At this time, he made many drawings from life, giving a fascinating insight into his own daily life, and the people he knew and met during his outings in the surroundings of Florence, especially during the years 1576-77, when he regularly visited the Badia of Vallombrosa, and executed there a distinctive and important series of portraits in red and black chalk.
This spontaneous scene is instead drawn solely in pen and ink, in a controlled but fluid style that can be compared to other drawings by the artist. James Mundy points out the similarities with a drawing at Chatsworth, Allegory of the Arts, which is similarly executed with parallel, if slightly dryer, strokes in pen and ink.1
1. Chatsworth, inv. no. 205; see M. Jaffé, The Devonshire Collection of Italian Drawings, Roman and Neapolitan Schools, London 1994, p. 239, no. 385, reproduced