POLIDORO DA CARAVAGGIO
(b. ca. 1497, Caravaggio, d. 1543, Messina)

Group of Figures Holding Book

c. 1525
Red chalk, 173 x 277 mm
British Museum, London

The Lombard heritage of Polidoro can be discerned in his landscape studies and many drawings of genre scenes, all executed in red chalk, a medium favoured by Leonardo and his Lombard followers. Polidoro took up a broad range of subjects in his genre drawings. The picture shows the verso of the sheet, on the recto being a schoolmistress with her pupil.