Watermark: none visible through lining.
The drawing is a late compositional study for the painting Virgin and Child with Saint John the Evangelist in a Landscape (Madonna di San Giovanni), executed by Barocci ca. 1565 as a votive gift for the church of the Capuchin Fathers at Crocicchia, and now in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche at Urbino. The drawing is the earliest connected pastel study by Barocci to survive; the technique of drawing in colored chalk may have resulted from the exposure to Correggio's drawings.
Inscribed on verso of mount, in graphite, "201/008; No. 9 Francesco Vanni" (cancelled); beneath this, in graphite, "Barocci"; in blue crayon, "6."
Rhoda Eitel-Porter and and John Marciari, Italian Renaissance Drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 2019, no. 113.
Selected references: Cleveland and New Haven 1978, no. 15; Fellows Report 19 1981, 175; McCullagh 1991, 55-56; Verstegen 2003, 378; Emilianiq 2008, 1: no. 16:2; St. Louis and London 2012-13, 68n124.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Nineteenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1978-1980. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981, p. 175.