One of four surviving large drawings of the same model, all in red and white chalk - another is at 905538, the others in the Uffizi and a private collection (Effigies and Ecstasies, Edinburgh 1998, no. 39). To the posed figure Bernini here imaginatively added branches and foliage, and it is possible that he conceived of the figure as the cyclops Polyphemus, at the moment of spying his beloved but heedless Galatea in the arms of Acis.

These drawings are not preparatory studies for any surviving sculpture or painting, and given their size and degree of finish it is likely that they were made as demonstration pieces. At the end of 1629 Bernini reluctantly accepted his nomination as head of the Accademia di San Luca for the following year, and the drawings have been associated with his presumed teaching responsibilities there, but they could equally have been made in the context of the occasional life-drawing classes that took place in his own studio.

Inscribed in pencil in an eighteenth-century hand: Cav Bernini; and on the verso, in pen: 'Academia del Sig.r Cavaliere Bernini / Comprata da Cesare Madona Adi 7 Aprile 1682 Scudi Sei - 6: / da me Michele Maglia'. This is Michele Maglia, born Michel Maille, a French sculptor active in Rome between about 1678 and 1700. The ‘Cesare Madonna’ from whom he bought the sheet may conceivably have been the widow of Giovanni Cesari, a sometime assistant of Bernini.

Catalogue entry adapted from The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection: Renaissance and Baroque, London, 2007