Head of a Young Man in Profile

Author: Klazina Botke

According to the note on the verso, this sheet, folded twice at some point and consequently quite badly damaged, was attributed to Santi di Tito. The young man pictured does indeed have some characteristics typical of his work. The slightly bent head, the downcast gaze and the tangled hair falling over the ears are reminiscent of painted figures by this Florentine artist. There is a similar young man as a secondary figure in the foreground of Santi di Tito’s 1571 The Crossing of the Red Sea (Palazzo Vecchio) and, reversed, in the background of Supper at Emmaus of 1574 (Santa Croce), both in Florence.

However, the young man’s head is not well drawn. The eyes do not appear to be in the right place and the transition from the neck to the torso is rendered rather clumsily. The outlines are strongly accentuated and may even have been drawn over later. In comparison with the many other figure studies by Santi di Tito in Florence, our drawing is much less animated and refined.^[1] Monbeig Goguel and Fischer suggested on these grounds that the study is not by the hand of the artist himself, but was made in the last quarter of the sixteenth century in Florence.^[2] Given the strong resemblance to the figures in the two paintings mentioned above, the drawing was probably done in Santi di Tito’s workshop. The removed backing sheet has been drawn on both sides, but not necessarily by the same hand.