Many of Paolo Veronese’s drawings feature multiple studies of a given motif in his paintings. This example can be related to several paintings of the Finding of Moses that the artist executed in the early 1580s. It includes three variant studies for Pharaoh’s daughter and the attendant standing beside her—along with a drapery study, a distant landscape, and five studies for the kneeling attendant who presents the infant Moses.
Paolo Veronese (1528–1588), Studies for the Finding of Moses, ca. 1580. Pen and brown ink and wash, 6 3/4 x 7 3/8 in. (171 x 186 mm). Purchased by Pierpont Morgan in 1909, IV, 81.