# Bust Portraits of Two Boys \(recto\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [GHIRLANDAIO, Davide]() - Date: 1451-1500 - Technique: Metalpoint, white highlighting on ochre yellow prepared paper, 218 x 280 mm ## Commentary Bust Portraits of Two Boys \(recto\) c. 1490 Metalpoint, white highlighting on ochre yellow prepared paper, 218 x 280 mm Staatliche Museen, Berlin The drawings on this double-sided sheet depict the same two youths twice, first as subjects of the portraits on the recto and second as models for the full-length standing figures in heavy mantles on the verso. The boys were probably workshop assistants \(garzoni\). The heads on the recto are not formal studies for finished portraits, but rather life studies made as exercises in the workshop. The attribution to Davide Ghirlandaio comes from Bernard Berenson \(1903\), however, it is contested by recent critics. ## Related artworks - [Aristotle and Diogenes]() - [Christ Supported by the Virgin, Sts John the Evangelist and Joseph of Arimathea]() - [Portrait of a Young Man, Portrait of a Young Woman]() - [Portrait of a Young Man]() - [Portrait of Selvaggia Sassetti]() - [St Jerome]() - [Virgin and Child Enthroned between St Ursula and St Catherine]() - [Virgin and Child]() - [Virgin and Child]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()