Female figure with covered head (study for a figure in the fresco of the Visitation in Santissima Annunziata)

In contradiction to the historic inscription ‘Micarino’, referring to the Sienese artist Domenico Beccafumi, modern research has revealed that this sheet is a work by Pontormo. The female figure is depicted in an odd posture between standing and kneeling. She has been recognized as the half-concealed, third figure from the left in the fresco of the Visitation in the forecourt of the church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence. Vasari enthusiastically praised this mural, and reports that Pontormo, then still relatively young, gave ‘his work, alongside countless other beautiful things, an immeasurable amount of quality’ and that ‘this work ... convinced all artists of his perfection’.