Description: Numbered at lower right in pen and brown ink: 631 (Sparre)

Harlequin, leading a man or woman dressed as a dunce and seated on a donkey which is whipped by a man with turban and moustaches; there are two soldiers on the right and children on the wall behind; two spectators cling to a column on the right. 
Traditionally catalogued as the work of an unknown artist, this drawing was assigned to Salvator Rosa by Osvald Sirén and tentatively attributed to Sirani by Catherine Johnston. 
The attribution to Sirani is supported by the presence of a free copy after a painting by Guido Reni in Chicago on the verso. The differences in detail between the drawing and the painting suggest a preparatory study rather than a copy: eg. the wall is in a different position , there is no drapery in the upper right, there is no dog in the painting. Sirani worked in Reni's studio and may very well have done his own version of Reni's composition, cf. this catalogue no. 1629. [Bjurström, It. Drawings, cat. no. 1636 (recto)]

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