This drawing is completely pricked for transfer. It may have been used for a roundel in the predella or on a column of a polyptych, but given the size and subject matter, it could alternately have served as the template for embroidery on a liturgical vestment.
The old mount of the drawing once bore an attribution to Giorgio Schiavone, a pupil and assistant of Squarcione in Venice and Padua about whom little is known. He signed several paintings, now in London and Berlin, with OPUS SCLAVONI DISIPULI / SQUARCIONI or OPVS SCLAVONI DALMAT/ICI SQUARCIONI and is also identified as Juraj (or Gregorio) Ćulinovoć, Chiulinovich or Chulinovich as well as Giorgio di Tomaso Schiavone. Berenson attributes a group of about twenty paintings to Chulinovich, which exhibit the strong influence of Mantegna. He is not otherwise known as a draftsman, so it is difficult to sustain the old attribution of this drawing.
Watermark: none.
Formerly attributed to Juraj Ćulinovoć, called Giorgio Chiulinovich or Chulinovich or Giorgio di Tomaso Schiavone, Scardona (Dalmatia) 1436/37-1504 Sebenico.
Inscribed on old mount (now lost, according to inscription on verso of modern perimeter mount), "GREGORIO SCHIAVONE".
Ćulinović, Juraj, approximately 1433-1504, Formerly attributed to.
Piancastelli, Giovanni, 1845-1926, former owner.
Brandegee, Edward, former owner.
Brandegee, Mary, former owner.
Scholz, János, former owner.
Notre Dame 1964, no. 63; Los Angeles and elsewhere 1967-68, no. 53.
The Life of Christ : Drawings from the János Scholz Collection : Italian Drawings from the 16th through the 18th Century. Notre Dame : University of Notre Dame Art Gallery, 1964, no. 63.
Tuscan and Venetian Drawings of the Quattrocento from the Collection of János Scholz. Los Angeles : Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1967, no. 53.