Study after Caravaggio's 'The Cardsharps' with color notes

This powerfully rendered scene of Cardsharps by a game table is based on a composition by Caravaggio of the same subject (Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth), painted about 1595-1600, but is not an exact reprise of the painting. The sheet includes at upper right a separate, summary sketch of the head of the same young man, who sits by the table at right in the more fully developed main scene. The drawings on the sheet are done with an unusually expressive handling of the pen and very bold chiaroscuro, qualities that indicate that this was from a sheepish copyist of Caravaggio. The sheet is inscribed at bottom right in pen and the similar color ink as the drawing, "calzoni rossi con striscie gialle" (red pantaloons with yellow stripes). The figures are annotated with letters (clockwise from left), "n," "b," "n," "v," "b," "g." ["r" ?]. These are color notes (nero, bianco, nero, verde, bianco, grigio, rosso). The fact of the annotations further confirms that this is after a painting. Alfred Moir and Frederick Den Broeder have suggested this drawing is possibly by a Northern artist of ca. 1600, but to the present compiler the draftsman is more likely Italian (also because of the idiomatic color notes). The influence of Agostino Carracci seems notable. (CCB, 2009)