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CESARE NEBBIA (Orvieto c. 1536 - c. 1614) SAINT LUKE
Pen and brush with brown ink, heightened with white, over traces in black chalk. Brownish paper; on an old mounting, which bears on the back numbering and attribution to Nebbia written in pen. The drawing 146 x 107 mm. The mounting 190 x 164 mm.
The old attribution seems acceptable, comparing the handling of pen and wash in this drawing at the Louvre, (RF  574, Recto). Is to be noted that the way of sketching the heads of the warriors in the background of the Louvre drawing is the same used for the head of our Saint Luke.

A pupil of Girolamo Muziano, Nebbia worked with his master on the decoration of the Orvieto Cathedral in the 1560s. Nebbia and Muziano became active, then, in many late 16th-century projects in Rome, during the administration of Gregory XIII (1572-1585) and also during the papacy of Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590). In 1603-1604, he moved to Milan where he worked for Federico Borromeo painting a series of frescoes on the life of the Blessed Carlo Borromeo for various sites.