Gori was a novice at Vallombrosa where Enrico Hugford who, as his name would suggest was from an English Roman Catholic family, became the abbot in 1743. Hugford achieved great fame for his pictures and decorative designs in scagliola: that is, in imitation of marble mosiac, in a kind of plaster made from pulverised selenite. After Gori left Vallombrosa he joined Ignazio, Enrico's younger brother, to produce scagliola.
This drawing is one of a series of portrait drawings of novices and monks from the monastery of Vallombrosa. Six of these were sold from the collection of Luigi Grassi at Sotheby's, London, 13 May 1924, lot 82. A drawing, also from Grassi's Collection, from this series is in the Lugt Collection, J. Byam Shaw, The Italian Drawings from the Lugt Collection, Paris, 1983, no. 83, pl. 101 (with a list of further Gori drawings)