A preparatory drawing for Morazzone's fresco of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Cappella del Rosario, San Vittore, Varese, which houses a miraculous fifteenth-century fresco of the Virgin and Child. In 1610 Morazzone painted an altarpiece of the Madonna of the Rosary for the chapel (now lost), and between 1615-17 he frescoed the walls with a cycle of scenes of the early lives of the Virgin and of Christ. The Presentation of the Virgin is painted high on the right wall of the chapel, and thus Morazzone depicted the figures and architecture as if seen obliquely from below. The free use of white heightening belies the definitive status of the drawing, which is squared for transfer and agrees in almost all details with the painting as executed.

The scenes, from the Chasing of Joachim from the Temple to the Dispute in the Temple, follow an iconographic programme devised by the provost of the chapel, Giovanni Andrea Dralli. The progress of the project is known in detail thanks to the contemporary chronicle of Giulio Tatto and to documents published in 1927. Morazzone was assigned the commission in October 1615 and began work the same month. The two largest scenes, the Presentation of the Virgin and the Betrothal of the Virgin, were executed between July and September 1616, and Morazzone completed the cycle, after several interruptions, in November the following year.

A careful study for the Betrothal of the Virgin in the same cycle was at Christie's New York, 14 October 2021, lot 28.

Inscribed at lower right by the 'Deceptive hand': Moranzon.

Text adapted from M. Clayton, The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection, 2007, no. 122.