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Description: Graphite, pen and grey and brown ink, grey wash, heightened with white (partly oxidized), 71 x 147 mm. Ruled framing lines on three sides, missing along the top, which is irregularly cut. Brown ink was only used on the pope on the right. Traced for transfer. Laid down.

This is most likely a drawing for a print, since the drawing is very precise and the outlines are indented. Bloemaert made two compositions executed in the same minute manner, with the four church fathers adoring the Eucharist. One is in a New York collection, engraved by Cornelis Bloemaert in 1629.  The other exists in two slightly different versions in drawings in Brussels and Oxford.  In those drawings, the Eucharist is placed on the altar, with an altarpiece behind it and angels. In the present drawing, the altar is empty, but the attention of the fathers is turned in that direction. The framing line is missing at the top, a clear sign that the sheet has been cut, but the drawing does not seem to be continued. Perhaps, given its small size, this is a design for the lower part of a title page. Bolten dates the drawing to 1620–30. His assumption that this is a first, hesitant attempt at the larger composition seems unlikely. [Magnusson, Dutch Drawings no. 50]

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