Giacomo Franco (1550–1620) engraved and published many works having to do with Venetian culture and tradition, especially towards the end of his life. Functioning as much as a publisher as as a printmaker, he nevertheless preferred to be known as "desegnador" or draughtsman, as in his will. In this drawing he captures a unique aspect of Venetian life as a young couple, witnessed by the gondoliere thankful for his rest, stops for a musical interlude far from the grandeur of the Piazza San Marco or the Grand Canal.

The illegitimate son of the painter and printmaker Battista Franco, Giacomo likely received his first training from his father before working for Cornelis Cort after 1565. His activity as a free-lance printmaker is attested by his many engravings published by others before he began his own book-publishing enterprise in 1595 at his father's address. This does not seem to have been his first ambition, since he never joined the guild of printers and booksellers. Even so, he is only documented in the perhaps more prestigious painters' guild in 1606. His most important works include eleven engravings for the first illustrated edition of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata in 1590, on which he worked with Agostino Carracci, both interpreting drawings by the Genoese artist Bernardo Castello. His activity as a publisher, though varied, seems to have had a practical bent, including maps, books on penmanship, and records of ceremonial events. In 1611, his long history of collaboration with the artist Jacopo Palma the Younger culminated in De excellentia et nobilitate delineationis, an illustrated manual for students of drawing.

The close collaboration between Giacomo and Jacopo Palma, and their drawings' similarities with those of a third artist working in Venice, Lodewijk Toeput called Pozzoserrato, have led to difficulties when it comes to certain moments in their careers. In the case of the Crocker drawing, one of these points comes forward since, as Terisio Pignatti made clear, the female figure is related to the "Donna che sona di lauto," a plate from the Habiti delle donne venetiane of 1609 for which both Franco and Palma designed plates.(1) Details of hair and costume, the winged coiffure, starched collar, and sleeves are similar, though the angle of the head differs and the setting is an interior scene. The words Franco format appear at the lower left of the engraving, making clear that the younger artist cut the plate.

Rather than being a close study of costume, however, the Crocker drawing represents a casual, charming vignette. It seems that this entertainment may not be entirely innocent, since the simply-dressed man at left is not the grand "sposo" seen in Franco's other prints and courtesans were allowed to travel in gondolas with faces uncovered. The setting in one of Venice's many byways gives a sense of private enjoyment to the sunlit scene.

The drawing was first identified as Franco by Terisio Pignatti and has been contested among Franco, Palma and Pozzoserrato in the years since. To this writer, it seems best to retain Pignatti's attribution, especially given the relationship to Franco's print, since Palma's figures and Pozzoserrato's buildings do not share the heavy treatment of features and the nervous, graphic penmanship respectively.