This exquisite sketch depicts the triumph of David, the biblical hero venerated in Florence since the earliest days of the Florentine Republic. One of the cardinal achievements of Giovanni Battista Vanni’s artistic career, the work is indissolubly linked to - in fact constituting a bold and clearly inspiring antecedent of - the large canvas (132 x 117 cm - 52 x 46 in.) conserved in Galleria di Palazzo Alberti (Prato), a masterpiece painted by the young Florentine painter which is not only of sublime artistic quality, but also has a valuable inscription that documents the artist and the date of its creation:“GIO BATTISTA VANNI FEDI NEL 1623”. In that period, Vanni had not long before left the studio of his master Cristofano Allori, who had died two years earlier, and was preparing to leave Florence for his first sojourn in Rome, where he stayed for several years, coming into the good graces of the Barberini, the family of the then- reigning Pope. The basis of this quickly-done compositional study was his apprenticeship with the younger Allori. The latter was in fact the creator of some of the most significant sketches and studies of the Florentine school, and his style clearly left an indelible mark on the young Vanni’s style. Among Allori’s many oil studies, we must mention, for the sake of comparison with the work under consideration here, the exemplar of the same subject at the Gallerie degli Uffizi (inv. 1890, n. 586), executed, like ours, with efficient splotches of color and, like his apprentice’s work, efficaciously handled with Baroque-style perspective and diagonals. Cristofano’s Susanna and the Elders in the same museum (inv. 1890, n. 7605) is indicative of the evident relationship between the two artists, demonstrating a noteworthy stylistic similarity with our sketch, in particular in the way the heads are outlined.

Indications that Vanni trained with Allori had already been noted by Francesca Baldassari in describing the final painting, conserved in Galleria di Palazzo Alberti. The scholar pointed out that in that painting there was an evident “influence of master Cristofano Allori in the clumpy use of paint for the pink- embroidered white sash and in the sketch-like rapidity with which the battle scene in the background is handled”.

Another element of interest in this rediscovered preparatory canvas stems from the dearth of examples of Vanni’s work in this particular artistic specialty. The only known preparatory sketch that has been found up to now was in fact one preliminary to the creation of St Benedict chasing the devil from a rock, an episode painted by Giovanni Battista Vanni from a series dedicated to the saint created by various artist in 1620-1621 for the company of San Benedetto Bianco. 

In the work under examination, the clash between the horsemen on the right does not take place in the distance as in the final canvas. In fact, the initial idea seems to have entailed combat taking place much closer to the victorious hero, alongside whom appear - very schematically sketched nearby on the same side - the same standard identifiable in the distance in Galleria di Palazzo Alberti painting and the outlines of a few armed men. An element of exceptional impact in the painting under examination here, and perhaps not as much so in the larger work, is the effective depiction of the soldier with the helmet, whose face emerges from the shadow with the highly-charged features typical of Cigoli-esque tradition. The armed man holds up the giant’s head, perhaps about to be thrown into the sack hinted at with a dark splotch along David’s side.