Jacopo Zucchi (Florence circa 1540-1596)

Although most of Zucchi's known drawings are more highly finished, the rapidly drawn figures on the present sheet share certain anatomical peculiarities which are characteristic of the artist, such as the thin ankles and tapering feet. The men carrying baskets on the right of the sheet, with their broad-brimmed hats and one hand on their hip, are very close to the figures with baskets in Zucchi's painting La miniera d'oro in the Studiolo of Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, where Zucchi worked as part of Vasari's team of painters between 1570 and 1572. The pair of elegantly dressed ladies, too, seem to be related to the noblewomen in the background of the same painting (see W. Vitzthum, I grandi decoratori: Lo Studiolo di Francesco I a Firenze, Milan, 1969, p. 46).