The Met website: "This sheet may be related to a group of drawings of paired oxen, all of which may depend on images recorded in model books of the previous century. The artist was probably from Venice or the Veneto, as animals of this type frequently appear in the backgrounds of paintings from the circle of Giovanni Bellini. The schematic outlines and the manner of rendering the wavy texture of fur recall the sketches of lions found in the sketchbooks of Giovanni’s father, Jacopo Bellini, executed between the 1440s and 1460s."