Figure Studies: Woman holding a Shield, a Dancing Female, and a Priest Supported at an Altar before a Group of Onlookers

It was Philip Pouncey who in 1958 recognized the hand of Poccetti in this drawing, which had previously been classified as anonymous Florentine. Pouncey pointed out that the group of figures in the lower half of the sheet are studied for the 'Death of Saint Buonagiunta Manetti' at the Altar of the Servite Monastery at Monte Senario, a fresco by Poccetti datable to 1612 in the Chiostro dei Morti of the Santissima Annunziata, Florence. This scene is one of fourteen incidents from the history of the Order of the Servants of Mary painted by Poccetti in the last years of his life from 1604 to 1612 in the large cloister of their monastery of Santissima Annunziata in Florence.

The Metropolitan Museum owns a total of four drawings by Poccetti which are also related to his important fresco cycle in the Annunziata: see inv. nos. 61.178.2 (the Death of Saint Alexis Falconieri), 64.48.1 (Saint Philip Benizi Converting two Women at Todi) and 200.91.1 (Seated Figure and Sanding Figure). Paul C. Hamilton has supplied a very complete account of the many surviving preparatory drawings for the project in his catalogue of the 1980 exhibition of drawings by Poccetti in the Uffizi (see Hamilton 1980, pp. 78-92). The purpose of the sketches at the top of this sheet is unclear, but Hamilton points out that the dancing figure at upper right is studied in a red chalk sketch in the Uffizi (inv. no 8395 F; Hamilton, 1980, no. 103, fig. 109).