Head of a soldier wearing a helmet

This impressive drawing, an early work by Canuti, has been connected with the artist’s earliest documented commission, the altarpiece of the Ecstasy of Saint Cecila in the church of Santa Maria di Valverde in Imola (see Le Claire, op. cit.; for the painting, see S. Stagni, Domenico Maria Canuti pittore (1626-1684), Rimini, 1988, no. 1, ill.): a similar soldier wearing a helmet appears behind Saint Cecilia at her right. Comparable large drawings executed in red and black chalk are the self-portrait at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York (inv. 1981.17; see Stagni, op. cit., p. 12, ill.), and the Head of a man wearing a turban in the Fachsenfeld collection, on long-term-loan to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (ibid., p. 27, ill.).