Lot 1327 Dα

In this study, the Genoese painter Castiglione first laid down the figures with oil and an almost dry brush before adding pigment to the faces. As Timothy J. Standring noted in his report in 2019, this technique is rather atypical for him. Nevertheless, the stylistic similarities between the heads from the study and those from the "Heidnischen Opfer" (Zurich, private collection) suggest that the present work was created in preparation for the Zurich work. According to Standring, it is plausible that it was created around the middle or second half of the 1650s, when Castiglione was travelling between Rome, Genoa and Mantua.