This work is one of the largest of the artist’s surviving drawings. Stimmer executed this sheet when he was only twenty-three and signed and inscribed it in Latin with a kind of copyright statement to the effect that it was his design and he hoped other painters would not copy it. The reddish brown background and his elaborate use of white heightening recall the work of earlier Swiss artists who were inspired by the work of Albrecht Dürer.
Signed, inscribed and dated by the artist, "Thobias Stimmer de Scaffusa fecit. Sperat autem, illis non ad opus, / qui illud abusunt, et qui causa sunt, ut abusaretur. Scilicet pingitores 1562".
Künast, Batlhasar, former owner.
Milani, C. Anton, former owner.
Milani, Alfonso, former owner.
Schreiber, Heinrich, Denkmale deutscher Kunst des Mittelalters, no. 3, Karlshruhe, 1828, 91.
Gabriel von Térey, "Eine Kunstkammer des 17. Jahrhunderts [Balthasar Künast zu Strassburg]," Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, XIX, 1869, 35.
Katalaog für die Ausstellung der Werke älterer Meister, Glaspalast, Munch, 1876, II, 302, no. 2549.
J. H. Bäschlin, Schaffhauser Glasmaler des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts, Schaffhausen, 1880, II, 5.
Friedrich Thöne, Tobias Simmer Handzeichnungen, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1936, 91, no. 335.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Sixteenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1969-1971. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1973, p. 121-122.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master drawings from the Morgan Library. New York: Morgan Library, 2006, cat. no. 55, p. 118-119.