Half-Length Study of a Monk Holding a Book and a Long Implement. Artist: Bernardo Strozzi (Italian, Genoa 1581-1644 Venice). Dimensions: 11 7/16 x 8 5/8in. (29.1 x 21.9cm). Date: ca. 1637-40.This superb drawing by the Genoese Baroque master Bernardo Strozzi is a preparatory study for a devotional painting with 'St. Anthony of Padua with a book and a lily', now in the church of San Nicolò da Tolentino of Venice (for this painting see Annalisa Perissa in Bernardo Strozzi, Genoa 1995, no. 78).The painting is generally dated to ca. 1637-1640 - that is, to the latest period of the artist's career in Venice - and the drawing shows Strozzi's personal adoption and interpretation of the local Venetian technique of drawing with black chalk on blue paper, the tipycal Venetian support. The lively composition with the Saint, seen in bust-length, was annotated on its verso in pen and brown ink with the inventory number of the so-called Borghese-Sagredo Album "P.G.No 30." The initials "P.G." confir