This drawing follows Matthew and Luke's account of Christ's entry into the city where the multitudes spread garments in his path. Jesus and the ass, both shown frontally, have made their way inside Jerusalem's walls.
Formerly attributed to Paolo Veronese, the drawing shares a stage-like semblance with many paintings by the artist, here evidenced in the figures behind the arch's upper parapet wall and in the figures posed on its adjacent stairs. Veronese's drawings are, however, generally more frenetic and typically filled with fragmented vignettes, whereas this sheet focuses exclusively on a single narrative passage from the Bible. Xavier Salomon confirmed that the author of this drawing is not Veronese (e-mail correspondence, June 2012).