Numbered at lower right in pen and brown ink: 939 (Sparre)

Preparatory study for St. John the Baptist in Guercino's altarpiece "The Madonna and Child with Saints Lucy, Francis, John the Evangelist and John the Baptist", painted in 1631-2 for the church of "S. Giovanni Battista" at Pesaro, of which only a small fragment survives. Other studies for the same painting are in the Los Angeles County Museum (St. John the Evangelist and St. John the Baptist; offset in Windsor Castle), the Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt am Main (St. John the Evangelist), the Mahon Collection, (on loan to the Ashmolean) and the Teyler museum, Haarlem. [Bjurström, It. Drawings, cat. no. 1558]