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Bears old attribution: m Giorgio Vasari, and red chalk numbering on the backing: N.670. Pen and brown ink over black chalk. This lot contains 1 item(s). We are grateful to Florian Härb who recognized that this is a late work related to a commission documented in Vasari's correspondence. Indeed the scene of this drawing depicting St. Jerome taking a thorn from the lion's foot is described in detail by Vasari in a letter to Francesco de'Medici, dated Rome 23 February 1572 (see Gaetano Milanesi, Le Opere di Giorgio Vasari, Scritti minori, Florence 1882, pp.466-8). Giorgio Vasari's last major project in Rome was to complete the work on the Sala Regia begun under Pope Paul III Farnese (d.1549) and finally finished in the first year of the papacy of Gregory XIII in 1573, more than thirty years later (see letter sent to Vincenzo Borghini 23 April 1573). In the letter addressed to Francesco de'Medici which starts with the description of his work for the Sala Regia, Vasari continues saying that he has done for the Pope (Pius V at the time) two panel paintings, one of the Ascension of St. Mary Magdalene and the other of St. Jerome taking the thorn out of the lion's foot. Neither painting appears to have survived, but this drawing is surely the preparatory study for the St. Jerome. Highly finished and detailed, it depicts a further episode in the story of the lion in the background, which Vasari describes in detail in his letter: 'Nell' altra tavola ci ho fatto quando S. Ieronimo cava la spina al leone, il quale per quel benefizio mai si parti da quello: ecci quando i frati gli fan guardare l'asino del convento, che dormendo il leone gli é tolto, e che dubitando i frati che non l'avessin mangiato, fan portare le legne al leone; poi avendo ritrovato certi vetturali che avevan carico frumento, che gli avevon rubato l'asino, gli fa fuggir e conduce i muli e l'asino al convento carichi di vettovaglia , che i frati non av