Comparative drawings by Giuseppe Zais are the “Virgin and Child Appearing to Saint Anthony of Padua”  in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (inv.no.P.A.F.A.29), the “Annunciation” formerly in the Robert Lehman Collection in New York and the two gouaches of “The Flight into Egypt” and the “Adoration of the Shepherds” both kept in the Museo Civico in Padua.  In the later period of his activity after the 1750’s, when he came in contact with Francesco Zuccarelli, he began to produce these types of drawings.

The present drawing is part of a series of presentation drawings by Giuseppe Zais, a similar sized and shaped drawing in the same technique and also squared for transference was with Sotheby’s Milano in 1999, showing “God the Father with the Dead Christ, seated in the Clouds”.  

The attribution has been confirmed by Prof. Bernard Aikema, University of Verona, in a written communication dated March 12, 2016.