Although sadly much corroded, the drawing is of high quality and the handling compatible with Cambiaso´s autograph drawings. Fortitude is one of the three Theological Virtues, whose attributes are a column and a lion.

This and a handful of other drawings by Cambiaso and his School, which do not belong to the Cambiaso Album, described below, have various provenances. Only three appear to have belonged to the same eighteenth-century Italian collector, since all three are laid down onto a paper backing with a heavily inked ruled border.

Turner, Nicholas, From Michelangelo to Annibale Carracci. A century of Italian drawings from the Prado, Chicago, Art Services International, 2008, p.227