Description: Numbered in pen and brown ink at lower right: 4

These drawings, attributed to Giovanni da Udine (Cat.nos. 455-463), are mounted and inscribed on the mounts, in the same way as another group of drawings, here arranged under Raphael's school (see below no. 530). They obviously belonged to the same 17th century collection.

A sheet with drawings of antique sculptures (verso), has been re-used for bird studies and finally trimmed to the size of the sparrow. The contours of a bird's tail, lightly sketched in red chalk, remains at the upper edge. The claws of the sparrow are sketched in red chalk, but not worked out.

The drawing belongs to a group of bird studies attributed to Giovanni d'Udine by Crozat. The largest group of eight drawings is in Stockholm. There is no unanimity about the attribution and no exact correspondence in any known work by the artist. However, as Dacos has pointed out, a bird in flight very similar to the present one is found on a pilaster in the Vatican Logge. 

Of the pen drawings of two antique sculptures on the verso, the one on the right represents the Apollo Citharoedos, possibly the version in the della Valle collection in the 1520s. Another drawing by a 'follower of Polidoro' is in the British Museum. Both drawings show the sculpture before restoration, with the left arm missing. I was also engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi. The style of the pen drawing on the verso is comparable to, although less controlled, than the drawing in Edinburgh, "Bacchus with two Bacchantes", for one of the pilasters in Raphael's Logge. This also supports the traditional attribution of the bird drawings, even if, in this case,  the verso is considered by Dacos to be by a different hand [Bjurström, It. Drawings, cat. no. 455]

Flygande sparv