This accomplished red chalk drawing is based on Titian's painting of the same subject, executed in 1533, housed in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (fig. 1).1 Stylistically, it shows strong similarities to the work of the Cremonese artist, Camillo Boccaccino.

Fig. 1 Tiziano Vecelli, Titian, The Adoration of the Shepherds, 1533, Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Particularly distinctive is the way the hatching is employed, using fairly wide lines, which is also reminiscent of works by Camillo's father, Boccaccio (1467-1525); see for example a double-sided drawing by Camillo in the Uffizi, Florence, depicting on the recto two studies for David and a Saint Jerome, and on the verso a Visitation.2

Camillo's style during his mature years, when he would have executed this drawing after Titian, is generally more fluid and less formulaic, but it can plausibly be argued that the more mannered approach adopted here is due to the fact that he is copying an existing composition.

1. I Campi e la Cultura artistica Cremonese del Cinquecento, exhib.cat., Cremona, Santa Maria della Pietà, Museo Civico Ala Ponzone,; Palazzo Affaitati, 1985, p. 271, no. 2.2.5, reproduced