A study after the head of an antique sculpture of one of the daughters of Niobe, now in the Uffizi, Florence.

This drawing, one of the few studies by Annibale after the antique to survive, bears witness to the impression that these figures made on Annibale after his arrival in Rome. The Niobids, after their discovery  in 1583 near the Lateran, had been acquired by the Grand Duke Cosimo de' Medici and set up in the Villa Medici in Rome. When Annibale came to Rome these antiques were still the talk of the town; their immediate influence upon him can be seen in the Camerino Farnese (eg. the head and gesture of Medusa, and of the mother of Amphinomus and Anapus), as well as in several paintings (eg. the head of the Canaanite Woman in his picture for the chapel of Palazzo Farnese, now in Parma; or the Magdalene and the Susanna in the Doria Pamphili Gallery). 

But beyond this borrowing of expression and gesture, it was through such studies of Roman sculpture that Annibale acquired his maniera Romana. The sculptural style of this drawing was immediately reflected in the studies for the Camerino Farnese; a Niobid type, stylistically close to the present drawing, is in the Louvre, inv. 7377.