This magnificent black-chalk or charcoal drawing—unusual mediums for Ghirlandaio—is pricked for transfer to the fresco of the Birth of the Virgin in Santa Maria Novella, Florence. The sitter accompanies the older hooded woman Ghirlandaio studied in metalpoint in cat. no. 15. Such a drawing could easily be reemployed to make an independent portrait—a practice Ghirlandaio is known to have adopted. Seeing these two related drawings for the same project together allows an evaluation of the qualities inherent in two very different mediums.
