A sheet of studies: the Coronation of the Virgin, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, and God the Father, with two further studies of God the Father for the Coronation attached to the upper right border

Volterrano’s energetic sheet of studies relates to one of his most important late commissions, the monumental Assumption of the Virgin frescoed in the dome of the Santissima Annunziata, Florence, between 1680 and 1683. The sheet records a significant early idea for the ambitious decorative program, which was further developed in a second sheet in the Albertina, Vienna (inv. 23997), of similar size and done in the same media. The present sheet can be precisely dated, as according to the artist’s biographer Filippo Baldinucci, Volterrano started the first sketches for the dome of the Annunziata on the night of 12 January 1676 (‘la sera de’ 12 di Gennajo 1676 cominciò egli a fare il primo disegno e invenzione’. F. Baldinucci, Notizie de' Professori del Disegno, XIII, Florence 1812, p. 138). The sheet contains several autograph annotations written by the artist: the one at top left (‘iudit’) identifies the sketch right below as a study for Judith, a figure that appears in the Assumption.