A man with his hands clasped over his head

Related to the kneeling man in the left background of the picture of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia painted just before 1730, now lost and known through a tapestry (T. Lefrançois, Charles Coypel, Paris, 1994, no. P112). The picture was painted as a pendant to the Swooning of Armida. The Sacrifice of Iphigenia was described in the 18th Century as Coypel's masterpiece: 'Carle Vanloo, qui par son talent éminent dans la peinture, étoit bien capable de décider du mérite de ses confrères, regardoit ce Tableau pour être le chef d'oeuvre de Coypel, & en faisait un cas singulier (P. Rémy, Prousteau sale, Paris, 5 June 1769).
The Gobelin Factory commissioned a cartoon of the composition, which was destroyed during the Second World War.