A study in black chalk on buff paper of a turbaned man holding a censer. The sheet has several oil stains and indistinguishable lines on the right-hand side, possibly from a drawing on the verso or transferred from another sheet. Inscribed in the lower left in a later hand ‘Tintoretto’, historic repairs to the verso of the sheet. Stamped in the lower right-hand corner with a George V blind stamp. 

This free and inventive chalk drawing of a turbaned man holding a censer was possibly executed as a study for a king in an Epiphany, although it has not yet been connected to a painting. The black chalk has been rapidly applied, with the artist adjusting the pose of his figure as he drew. Rough patches of shading shape the figure’s drapery, creating a sense of the folds of fabric, whilst the shading across the figure’s face gives the impression that they are moving from light into shadow.

The inscription in the lower left corner attributes the drawing to Jacopo Tintoretto (1519–94), as does an inventory taken of the Royal Collection in 1810. The reworked, scratchier quality of the lines and the lack of focus on the defined structure of the body belie this attribution. In Italian drawings of the XV and XVI centuries at Windsor Castle, Johannes Wilde attributed the drawing to Domenico Tintoretto (1560 –1635). Martin Clayton has suggested that it may have been produced by a Florentine or Sienese artist.