This drawing of a common hoopoe was commissioned from the artist Vincenzo Leonardi by the seventeenth-century Roman patron and collector Cassiano dal Pozzo to illustrate a 1622 treatise on birds by Giovanni Pietro Olina titled L'Uccelliera, ovvero discorso della natura e proprietà di diversi uccelli ('The Aviary, or Discourse on the Nature and Characteristics of Diverse Birds'); the engraving by Francesco Villamena based on this drawing appears on fol. 35 verso of this book.

See Birds, Other Animals and Natural Curiosities, Part B.IV/V of The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo: A Catalogue Raisonné (2 vols, Royal Collection Trust 2017), vol. 1, cat.10.