This energetic drawing shows female personifications of Painting (right) and Sculpture (left). It is likely that these figures were Palma’s initial ideas for an etching of the same subject, which he contributed to a drawing manual that was published in Venice in 1611. In this drawing Palma used vigorous parallel strokes of the pen (hatchings) to indicate areas of shadow. These resemble the engraved lines of prints, and could possibly be linked to Palma’s activities as a printmaker around this time. The presence of an unrelated inscription and the figure of a penitent St Jerome are evidence of the experimental nature of the sheet. Furthermore, paper was a precious commodity in the sixteenth century, and artists frequently used both sides of a piece of paper while exploring new ideas.