The present drawing can only be tentatively attributed to du Quesnoy, on the basis of Dezallier D'Argenville's inscription, since no drawings can be securely attributed to du Quesnoy. Jennifer Montagu, in a letter to the previous owner rejecting the attribution to du Quesnoy, pointed out that a reversed version of the putto is at the feet of du Quesnoy's bronze of Apollo, a version of which is in the Liechtenstein collection in Vienna, M. Fransolet, François du Quesnoy, sculpteur d'Urbain VIII, Académie Royale de Belgique, IX, 1942, pl. XII, fig. b. Another bronze of a putto, in a posture similar to that of the present drawing, is in Berlin, Fransolet, op. cit., pl. XV, fig. d.
The location of the putto indicated by Dezallier D'Argenville as on Bernini's baldachino in Saint Peter is explained by du Quesnoy's involvement in that commission in the 1620s.
Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée mentions that a drawing very similar to the present one, also from the Gigoux collection, is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon.