Watermark: none visible through lining.
The drawing may be a study for or copy after the altarpiece "St. Nicholas of Bari Presenting Pupils of Galeazzo Rovelli to the Virgin and Child" painted for the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Brescia in 1539, now in the Pinacoteca Civica Tosio-Martinengo, Brescia.
Inscribed at lower right, in pen and gray-brown ink, "Aless. Buonvicino da / Brescia 1539"; on verso of mount, in pen and brown ink, "Aless: Buentinno (cancelled)"; beneath this, in pen and brown ink, possibly by the Earl of Yarmouth, "Alessandro Buonvicino - detto Moretto da Brescia / Disciple of Titian"; in graphite, inserted before the word "Disciple, best"; at lower right, in graphite, "£2.12.6".
Yarmouth, Robert Paston, Earl of, 1631-1683, former owner.
Warwick, George Guy Greville, Earl of, 1818-1893, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Morgan, J. P. (John Pierpont), 1867-1943, former owner.
Rhoda Eitel-Porter and and John Marciari, Italian Renaissance Drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 2019, no. 64.
Selected references: Fairfax Murray 1905-12, 1: no. 72; Begni Redona 1988, under no. 66; Brescia 1988, no. 3b; Lucchesi Ragni and Stradiotti 2004, 156; Bona Castellotti and Lucchesi Ragni 2014, 237; New Haven 2018, 209.