Watermark: none visible through lining.
Preparatory study for the Battle of the Taro River, now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
Titian's death in the plague of 1576 left the way open for Tintoretto to win new patrons not only in Venice but also abroad. Beginning in 1578, for example, he received from Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga of Mantua a commission for a series of large paintings depicting Mantuan military victories. Although the final canvases include significant contributions from the workshop, perhaps necessarily in order to satisfy the demand that they be quickly produced, Tintoretto carefully supervised the project. This study for the horseman to the right of center in the Battle of the Taro is in a style that would become increasingly common in Tintoretto's drawings of the late 1570s and 1580s, a deft sketch rather than the forceful, carved bodies of earlier drawings. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawing in Tintoretto's Venice"
Inscribed at lower right, in pen and brown ink, "G Tintoretto"; on verso, in graphite, "1527".
Reynolds, Joshua, Sir, 1723-1792, former owner.
Kühlmann, former owner.
Scholz, János, former owner.
John Marciari, Drawing in Tintoretto's Venice, New York, 2018, no. 44, fig. 93, repr.
Italienische Meisterzeichnungen vom 14. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert aus amerikanischem Besitz : Die Sammlung János Scholz, New York. Hamburg : H. Christians, 1963, no. 162 (includes previous bibliography and exhibitions).
Italian Drawings from the Collection of János Scholz. London : Art Council Gallery, 1968, no. 101.
Italian Master Drawings from the Collection of János Scholz. Middletown, Conn. : Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, 1969, no. 18.
One Hundred Italian Drawings from the 14th to the 18th Centuries from the János Scholz Collection. New York : New School Art Center, 1971, no. 89.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Twentieth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981-1983. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984, p. 295.