Raffaellino Motta da Reggio (Codemondo, Reggio Emilia 1550-1578 Rome)

Still preserved on its original album page annotated by Sebastiano Resta, this sheet is a typical work by Motta, a talented yet short-lived master of late Roman Mannerism. Resta correctly associated this lively study with the artist's only extant panel painting, Tobias and the Angel in the Galleria Borghese (inv. 298). Two other drawings in the Uffizi, both executed in ink over red chalk, like the present one, attest to the development of this painting, possibly his most famous one (M.S. Bolzoni, 'The Drawings of Raffaellino Motta da Reggio', Master Drawings, LIV, 2, 2017, nos. A7, A11, figs. 10, 71).