Taddeo Zuccaro

The sheet is irregularly shaped and has been made up at first to the left, upper and right edges, before being made up further with another strip of paper, visible lower left. The ink has sunk into the sheet and eaten away at the paper in a few areas, resulting in some holes to the sheet. There is evidence of foxing throughout and a horizontal crease running across the upper section of the sheet, where the two sheets meet. The medium is still reasonably strong throughout, though the ink has sunk in places.
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The subject of this lively and energetic drawing must be a mythological scene due to the identifiable figure of Diana, third from the left, who is wearing the crescent moon as a diadem.  It has not been possible to connect the present sheet to a known commission but stylistically it is very close to a design by Taddeo for a soprapporta depicting two female figures seated on a pediment that is sketched on the verso of a drawing in the British Museum.¹  Both drawings share the same rapid penmanship and highlight the intense vitality of Taddeo's working studies.  The verso studies on the British Museum drawing are for the soprapporta on the end wall of the Sala Regia, above the entrance to the Cappella Paolina.  A payment for that particular commission is recorded on December 1564² and the proximity in handling of our drawing to the British Museum sheet suggests the present sketch may also have been executed in the 1560s.

^1. J.A. Gere, Taddeo Zuccaro: His development studied in his drawings, London 1969, p. 167 and 168, no. 108 (verso), pl. 158

^2. J. A Gere, op.cit., p. 168