[1][2] A copy in the Galleria Borghese, in Rome, includes an additional fourth figure.
The latter is first definitively recorded in 1654, when it was acquired as a Giorgione work by cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici, whose collections later merged with that of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
[3] Sebastiano del Piombo and Giovanni Cariani have also been mentioned in the past as possible alternative attributions.
[4] Conductor Bruno Walter mentions that Gustav Mahler had a reproduction of the painting hanging on his wall.
And I recall that, for a long time to come, I mysteriously identified the ascetic monk of the painting with Mahler.