A grouping of trophies

This drawing can be compared to a pair of larger (21.5 x 51 cm.) drawings of antique trophies recently with Eric Coatalem, Paris. M. Sandoz in his catalogue raisonné on the artist suggests that these types of drawings were part of a group of frieze-like decorations of antique objects and that the motifs were inspired by Lagrenée's contemporary, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) (M. Sandoz, Les Lagrenée. II. Jean Jacques Lagrenée (Le Jeune) 1739-1821, Paris, 1988, p. 235, no. 151, pl. XXII; pl. XX, no. 7A1, no. 266; p. 288, no. 7B2, pl. XXIV). A similar composition of military tropies attributed to Lagrenée and executed in pen and brown ink, brown wash and heightened with white, rather than the cobalt blue of the present sheet, is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Acc. No. 1971.513.35).