Primaticcio was one of several major Italian artists who worked at the French court at Fontainebleau, which thus became an outpost of the Italian Renaissance. This study for a lost painting may depict the Old Testament story of the sale of Joseph by his brothers to Ishmaelite merchants. The bearded man to the left reaches inside his cloak for a purse, and one youth holds a chain as if evaluating its weight. The coffer at lower right seems to give forth a trousered leg, presumably of the bound Joseph. No. 43