Watermark: none.
This drawing appears to represent one of the rare instances in which an artist's design for the frontispiece of a manuscript or printed book has survived.
Inscribed on verso at upper left in pen and brown ink, "remo (?) / liberi (?) / lanl[...]a".
Anonymous, Italian School, 16th cent., Formerly attributed to.
Master of the della Rovere Missals, active 1475-1505, Formerly attributed to.
Fatio, Paul, former owner.
Scholz, János, former owner.
Selected references: Staten Island 1961, no. 1 (as School of Ferrara, ca. 1480-1500); Hyatt Mayor, in Houston 1966, 56-57, no. 6 (as Anonymous Ferrarese, ca. 1500); Los Angeles and elsewhere 1967-68, no. 5 (as anonymous Ferrarese artist, ca. 1500); Scholz 1976, no. 29; Fellows Report 1981, 199; Alexander, in London and New York 1994-95, 211-12, no. 107, (as Anonymous, Rome?, late 15th to early 16th century).
Italian Drawings from the János Scholz Collection. New York : Staten Island Museum, 1961, no. 1.
Tuscan and Venetian Drawings of the Quattrocento from the Collection of János Scholz. Los Angeles : Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1967, no. 5.
Scholz, Janos. Italian Master Drawings, 1350-1800, from the János Scholz Collection. New York : Dover, 1976, no. 29, repr.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Nineteenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1978-1980. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981, p. 199.