This is an early work by Giovanni Bellini, and close in type to the figure of St Anthony Abbot in the St Sebastian triptych (Accademia, Venice), probably created by Giovanni’s father Jacopo Bellini with the assistance of his sons Giovanni and Gentile. It may be a study for another St Anthony Abbot, perhaps in a sacra conversazione (Sarah Vowles, Mantenga and Bellini, 2018, p. 214), though the high degree of finish may suggest that it was executed as a finished work in its own right.

This would be supported by the physical evidence that the sheet was framed and hung in the light at an early date. Small regularly-spaced holes on the left and right edges sheet suggest it was once nailed to a backing panel. The sheet appears to have been lightly varnished overall, and the original blue of the paper has faded to a dirty brown, except along the edges, where the paper would have been protected from the light by the edge of a frame.

Giovanni Bellini was the most important painter of early Renaissance Venice, and is today recognised as one of the greatest of all Italian Renaissance artists. He introduced a new degree of realism and psychological insight to painting, and his interest in the use of light to create form and volume is evident in this drawing. He rendered deep, sculptural shadows in the folds of the man’s drapery, and carefully picked out the fall of light on his beard with delicate strokes of white heightening.