Heads copied from a fresco in the Scuola del Santo, Padua

The six heads have all been copied from the left side of a fresco depicting St Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) miraculously re-attaching the severed foot of a young man. The fresco is painted on the walls of the assembly room of the Scuola (Brotherhood) of the Saint, sited opposite the Basilica of St Anthony in Padua. The large fresco, entitled 'The Healing of the Wrathful Son', is one of three depicting scenes from the life St Anthony, commissioned for the room from a young Titian in 1511. It is considered his first major solo commission which still exists in its entirety. At this early point in his career, Titian's work was greatly influenced by the painter Giorgione (1477/8-1510), alongside whom he had trained in the Venetian studio of Giovanni Bellini (about 1430-1516) and with whom he retained a close relationship up to Giorgione's early death in 1510. William Roscoe believed that this drawing was by Giorgione and considered it a 'fine character' study of 'five heads'. He was unaware that it related to Titian's frescoes in Padua, an identification only made in the 20th century. Titian's Paduan frescoes would have been accessible for copying to other artists visiting nearby Venice and its mainland. The copy drawing has also been attributed in the past to Sebastiano del Piombo (about 1485-1547), who trained with Giorgione in Venice but moved to Rome in 1511.