Studies of a kneeling man (recto); Study of a standing man at right, and small scene of a kneeling figure in an interior, probably the Virgin in the Annunciation (verso)

This vibrantly expressive double-sided sheet is typical of Francesco Maffei's style and technique, an artist trained by Alessandro Maganza in the Venetian grand manner emanating from Tintoretto. An early collector in fact confused the drawing as by Tintoretto, and wrote an attribution to him along the bottom border of the recto. Born in Vicenza, Maffei was a very active painter in Venice and the northwest part of Italy, producing altarpieces, large narrative compositions, and smaller cabinet pictures for collectors.

As seen here, his figures often seem pleasingly eccentric in style, with relatively small heads compared to their elngated bodies, somewhat outsize musculature, and wildly gesticulating hands. Drawn after a male model, the studies on the recto and verso are large, full of vigorous exploratory underdrawing in black chalk, and were undoubtedly preparatory for one or more of Maffei's paintings which often depict agitated, even contorted secondary figures as filler in compositions. On the verso, at left corner, the small sketchy scene, or vignette, is executed primarily with the brush and portrays a kneeling figure within an interior, partly covered at the top by a curtain. This motif was probably intended as the Virgin in the Annunciation.