A brush drawing of the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, the saint tied to a pillar at left, an arrow piercing his side; to the right and arch takes aim at the saint, below him a third figure reaches for an arrow that has fallen on the steps.

The composition corresponds with a small panel painting of the subject by Jacopo Bassano in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (inv. CA 41), though the relationship between drawing and painting is uncertain. W.R. Rearick suggested that the drawing is an autograph record of the painting ('Jacopo Bassano: 1568-9', Burlington Magazine, 1962, p . 530), proposing that the black chalk underdrawing is by Jacopo Bassano, who then passed the sheet on to his son Francesco Bassano to add the wash and white heightening; Rearick identified another sheet, depicting St Roch ministering to the Plague Victims (Uffizi, 13063 F) carried out in the same method.

V. Romani noted differences of detail between drawing and painting, such as the altered drapery by the saint’s foot, and suggested the drawing is a preparatory study (Jacopo Bassano, exh. cat. Fort Worth, 1993, cat. no. 106). A. Bayer argued that these differences, the weaker modelling of light and shade and the less convincing spatial setting point instead to the drawing being a copy after the painting (review, Master Drawings, 1995, p.168). The date added to the drawing certainly supports this theory, and the pedestrian uniform finish of the sheet indicated that it is after, not for, the painting. Whether it is a workshop ricordo or a more remote copy is open to question; Rearick’s proposal that two hands are involved, both Jacopo and Francesco, seems unprovable. 

The figure of St Sebastian was reused elsewhere in paintings by the Bassano workshop - eg. the Christ in the Frederikssund Flagellation (Bassano exh, 1993, no. 69); the Sebastian in Sts Sebastian, Roch and Fabian, Museo Civico, Treviso, on deposit from the Accademia, Venice (from the Ognissanti, Treviso).