This small, fluid study is one of seven known preparatory sketches for the four pendentives painted in fresco by Giovanni Battista Gaulli for the church of the Gesù in Rome. According to documentary evidence, Baciccio was engaged to produce this cycle in the mid-1670s. An entry from the diary of the Jesuit priest Carlo Cartari reveals that the frescoes of the dome were unveiled on 14 April 1675 and that Baciccio had already begun work on the pendentives at this time. The diary of Cartari’s fellow Jesuit, Paolo Ottolini, informs that when Queen Christina of Sweden visited the Gesù on 3 March 1676, work had sufficiently progressed so as to enable her to admire the first two of the pendentives, which had just been completed. All four of the pendentives were likely completed by July 1676, when Baciccio received payments to begin work on the fresco of the vault (see R. Enggass, The Painting of Baciccio, Giovanni Battista Gaulli, 1639-1709, University Park, PA, 1964, p. 136).

Another, more fully realized bozzetto for the same pendentive but on a larger scale is today in the Pinacoteca Comunale, Deruta (see R. Enggass, op. cit., p. 122, fig. 59), indicating the required planning to place four figures and accessories in an odd-shaped field. Prominently positioned at the top of the painting is Moses, shown holding the Ten Commandments which he points to with his staff. He is assisted by three angels. Directly to Moses’ right is his ancestor, Abraham, with a long white beard and at far left, in a plumed helmet, is Joshua, who conquered Canaan and became Moses’ successor as the leader of the Israelites upon the latter’s death. Though seldom encountered in depictions of Israelite judges and lawgivers, Joshua’s inclusion may have been explicitly requested by Baciccio’s patrons. The name Joshua is analogous to Jesus in Hebrew, and the emblem of the Society of Jesus is, in turn, the Most Holy Name. Perhaps not coincidentally, Joshua recurs in two other instances in the ceiling decoration and was initially supposed to have been the main character in the apse fresco, until he was replaced with the Adoration of the Lamb. At the base of the pendentive, seen from behind, is Moses’ brother, Aaron, the high priest of the Israelites.