Attributed to Giacinto Calandrucci (Palermo 1646-1707)

At least four versions of this composition survive. A simplified version of the present sheet, probably a copy, was last recorded in the collection of David Bindman (image from Witt Library), when it was given to Sebastiano Conca. A more intensely-worked treatment of the composition, which highlights the figures of Mary and Saint Elizabeth using white bodycolour, is in the Ashmolean Museum (inv. WA1935.62), presently catalogued as Benedetto Luti. However, the closest in composition and execution to the present drawing is a sheet at Düsseldorf, first attributed to Calandrucci by E. Schaar (Die Handzeichnungen von Andrea Sacchi und Carlo Maratta, Düsseldorf, 1967, no. 740) and now accepted as either a work by the master or by a member of his studio following Calandrucci's original (inv. FP1366; D. Graf, Die Handzeichnungen von Giacinto Calandrucci, Düsseldorf, 1986, no. 323, fig. 370). The comparative confidence and complexity of line in the present drawing suggests that it may be a drawing for the composition from Calandrucci's own hand. Strangely, for a composition for which so many drawings are known, no painting survives.