MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS
Red chalk drawing on blue paper with white brush heightening,
black hatching and gallus shading
27 x 22 cm
Private collection Antwerp
3 preparatory drawings can be related with this highly finished drawing.
2 works, representing the same group at Windsor Castle, no. 03111 (Rosso), red chalk over traces of black; 28,9 x 20,9 cm.; inscribed in pencil at the lower right; Del Rosso Fiorentino. fig.2
The other is a black and red chalk drawing on cream laid paper, laid down on cream wove card
28.2 × 18.6 cm., attributed to Andrea Boscoli fig.3
Dated 1580–1599 In the Art Institute of Chicago. (1)
The third is a sketch that depicts the overall composition held in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 18,5 x 12,2 cm (no. 49:537 verso) attributed to Federico Zuccaro.
Eugene Carroll in his dissertation on Rosso Fiorentino, pp.519-520 (2), points out that the Windsor drawing might not be by Rosso Fiorentino, as do his colleagues, Antal and Ragghianti. (3)
Moreover, he disputes the attribution to Andrea Boscoli by Antal of the Windsor drawing on the bases of ill stylistic evidence. This attribution to Boscoli, however, isn’t that farfetched when compared to the many red chalk drawings preserved in the Uffizi. (4)
Coincidently, the drawing in the Art institute is attributed to Boscoli as well.
The drawing in the Rijksmuseum is rightly attributed to Federico Zuccaro, when compared with a drawing sold at Bonhams in November 2003, we see the same sketchy way of rendering the heads and matchstick figures in the background. (5) fig. 4,5
Now let’s take a leap in the dark and assume these 4 related drawings are by the same hand.
The most finished sketch, being the one in the Rijksmuseum, probably by Zuccaro, the drawing in the Chicago, might also be attributed stylistically to Zuccaro when compared to other drawings by the master, where we find the same way of hatching in red and black as we see in the Chicago drawing. (6).
The find of our drawing in an Antwerp collection, could also point in the direction of Federico Zuccaro, who spend some time in the city in 1574 and 1575.(7)
Conclusion:
Although our drawing is the most finished version of the 4 drawings, it is difficult to attribute it to one distinct hand. Andrea Boscoli a prolific draughtsman, used in his later work some comparable chiaroscuro shading, something we don’t find in the work of Zuccaro.
The Chicago drawing and the Amsterdam drawing, though, are closer to the style of this master and could be by the same hand.
Paul Johannides (University of Cambridge), confirmed by mail that the composition looks very like Boscoli and he sees no reason to doubt that.  The red chalk drawing is, according to him, either a preparatory drawing or a copy of one, of which the black chalk drawing would also be a copy. The Rijksmuseum drawing would presumably be a ricordo by F. Zuccaro of BV's composition.    

1. CAROLL, EUGENE A., The drawings of Rosso Fiorentino, outstanding dissertation in the fine arts, New York, Garland, 1976 pp. 519-520, F.58
2. SUZANNE FOLDS McCULLAGH and LAURA M. GILES, Italian Drawings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1997), pp. 299-300, no. 400 (ill.). The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection no. 1922.1019
3. ANTAL, in Burlington Magazine, 1951, p. 32 and p.35; RAGGHIANTI CARLO L., review of Popham and Wilde catalogue in Critica d’Arte, I, 1954, p. 595
4. https://euploos.uffizi.it/inventario-euploos.php?invn=&aut=%C2%ABBoscoli+Andrea%C2%BB&cat=&sgti=&mtcm=&mtct=&u=1762857260#opimages-14149ng4-1
https://euploos.uffizi.it/inventario-euploos.php?invn=&aut=«Boscoli+Andrea»&cat=&sgti=&mtcm=&mtct=&u=1762857260 - opimages-14230ng9-1
5. EUROPEAN PAINTINGS, 19 Nov 2003, Bonhams & Butterfields auction catalogue, San Francisco CA, United States
Federico ZUCCARI (c.1543-1609), Study of the right-Hand Side of the Rule of the Anti-Christ
Lot # 2. Drawing - Watercolor, pencil, red chalk/paper, 22.2 x 15.9 cm
6. https://euploos.uffizi.it/inventario-euploos.php?invn=&aut=%C2%ABZuccari+Federico%C2%BB&cat=&sgti=&mtcm=&mtct=&u=1762859244#search-result
7. GOLDRING E.: "The Earl of Leicester's Inventory of Kenilworth Castle, c.1578", English Heritage Historical Review, Vol. 2, 2007, p. 38