Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino

This sensitively rendered red chalk study of Christ can be dated on stylistic grounds to the early 1640s. The handling of Christ's hair and the luminosity achieved from the reserves of the sheet, particularly to his face and chest, is highly reminiscent of the artist's 1644 portrayal of Christ in The Flagellation, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.¹

¹ N. Turner, The Paintings of Guercino: A revised and expanded catalogue raisonné, Rome 2017, p. 587, no. 298; Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 4225