Description: Numbered at lower right in pen and brown ink: 800 (Sparre) and 131 (struck out)

This drawing is a preparatory study for one of the frescoes for the lunettes of the Herrera Chapel in "S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli" in Rome (now "N.S. del Sacro Cuore"). In February 1602 Juan Henriquez de Herrara had acquired the chapel which was dedicated to the Franciscan saint Diego of Alcalà, who was canonized in 1588. According to Bellori it was decorated by Herrara in fulfilment of a vow for the restored health of his son. Annibale got the commission not earlier than 1604 and after the Farnese Gallery was finished. An inscription from the chapel shows that the commission was finished by 1607. When Annibale fell ill in 1605 the responsibility for the project was transferred to his collaborator Francesco Albani. Also Sisto Badalocchio and Giovanni Lanfranco participated in the work. 
The frescoes were detached and transferred to canvas in the nineteenth century. Sixteen of them were sent to Barcelona in 1850, nine remaining there and seven transferred to the Prado. The fresco with this composition, attributed to Annibale Carracci and Sisto Badalocchio is now in Barcelona. Prints after this and the other frescoes in the Herrera Chapel were made in 1646 by Simon Guillain. 
There exists a large number of preparatory drawings for this set of paintings. The largest group, fifteen sheets, is at Windsor Castle, published by Wittkower, Spear and Puglisi. In the Louvre there are three drawings, in Frankfurt one, in the Horne collection one and at the Fogg Art Museum one. A similar series exist in The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. There is no consensus about by whom our group of drawings is executed, the most probable, however, being Albani, strongly influenced by Annibale. [Bjurström, It. Drawings, cat. no. 1414]

Den helige Diego predikar