A preliminary drawing of a painting commissioned by King Louis XVI for the Trianon, near Versailles, A. Schnapper, Tableaux pour le Trianon de Marbre 1688-1714, Paris, 1967, no. I 25bis. In 1688, the King commissioned Coypel, along with Verdier, Houasse and other painters of the younger generation, to paint mythological subjects to decorate the newly build Trianon.
Coypel painted two related paintings: Apollo crowned by Victory after the Defeat of Python and Apollo crowned by Victory both of about 1688. The present drawing is closer in composition to the second painting, but the inclusion of Python at the lower right is related to the first. As Coypel was working on both compositions at roughly the same time, it is difficult to judge if this is a preparatory drawing for one of the paintings or an intermediate stage between the two