Watermark: none.
A drawing of the same subject by Jörg Breu the Younger is in the collection of the Morgan (acc. no. 1978.38).
The source of the scene depicted is Herodotus 5.111-13. Jörg Breu could have known the passage from a German translation of Herodotus, published in Augsburg in 1535--Cf. Schneider.
This drawing was formerly attributed to the Nuremberg artist Virgil Solis (1514-1562 Nuremberg), on account of the later - albeit false - monogram it bears. Yet the style and handling, in particular the razor-sharp pen line, differ from Solis's known works and are so similar to a series of drawings depicting rulers by Breu that it seems more likely that the work is by Breu instead, and it served as the model for 1978.38.
Inscribed in brown ink at upper center, "Nr.72".
Solis, Virgil, 1514-1562, Formerly attributed to.
Koenigs, Franz, former owner.
Boerlage-Koenigs, A. K. M., Mrs., former owner.
McGreevy, Milton, donor.
McGreevy, Milton, Mrs., donor.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Seventeenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1972-1974. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1976, p. 182.
100 Master Drawings from The Morgan Library & Museum, Munich 2008, pp. 164-5, cat. 68.
Helmuth Schneider, "Die Mär von der bissigen Mähre,"Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 16, 2013.