Studies of putti and a female nude

Louis-Antoine Prat pointed out in a letter to the previous owner that this drawing countains studies for the frieze of Justice in the Salon du Roi in the Palais-Bourbon, Paris, L. Johnson, The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix, Oxford, 1989, no. 515, pl. 5. The putto at the right of the drawing corresponds with one sheathing a sword on the right in the central niche of the frieze of Justice. The same putto appears in a sheet of studies in the Louvre, L.-A. Prat, Dessins d'Eugène Delacroix, Paris, 1984, no. 187. Louis-Antoine Prat also remarked that the reclining woman reappears in reverse in a drawing at the British Museum, which is a study for the frieze of Agriculture in the Salon du Roi, M. Sérullaz, Mémorial de l'exposition Eugène Delacroix, Paris, 1963, no. 267.
Delacroix received the commision to decorate the Salon du Roi in 1833 and was awarded 30,000FF for the work, which he had raised to 35,000FF. The decoration was finished in 1838 and the rooms opened to the public.