Recto: a drawing of the head of a young man, turned half to the right and looking upwards. Verso: two studies of the head of an infant, inclined downwards. 

The drawing on the recto of this sheet is a study for the head of the figure of St John the Evangelist in The Madonna and Child with St John the Evangelist and St Petronius, commissioned for the Bolognese Church of St John the Evangelist and St Petronius, in Rome; now in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome. The drawings on the verso of the sheet are not connected with this project.

In his biography of Domenichino, Giovan Pietro Bellori includes this altarpiece among the works executed before the painter's departure for Naples in 1631. It was commissioned during the Holy Year of 1625, and delivered in 1629. The Francesco Raspantino inventory lists a 'charitone della Madonna del quadro de Bolognesi', and 26 'disegni del quadro della chiesa de Bolognesi'.

There are 34 sheets of studies at Windsor connected with this painting.