A standing man in profile to the left playing the triangle

A study for the figure playing the Triangle near the column on the right of the tapestry L'entre de Marc-Antoine Ephse (Troyes, Muse des Beaux-Arts and elsewhere, Charles-Joseph Natoire, 1977, no. 24). The cartoon was exhibited at the Salon of 1741 as no. 14, but the weaving of the tapestry was not begun before 1750. The tapestry was woven in haute-lisse, in the same direction, and took three years to finish.
The original commission from Philibert Orry, Directeur gnral des Btiments du Roi, required seven subjects based on the story of Antony and Cleopatra. It was ordered in 1740 for the Manufacture des Gobelins and the price fixed at 16,000 livres. It took seventeen years for Natoire to complete only three cartoons. When Marigny took over from Orry, the price of each cartoon was raised to 3,500 livres. After Natoire was paid for the first cartoon in 1742 he waited eleven years to execute the second cartoon while the third one was only finished in 1757. The series was stopped after that.
Another drawing related to the cartoon, for the woman holding a tambourine on the left, is in the Louvre (Troyes, op. cit., no. 23), and further drawings are also in the Louvre. The cartoon for the tapestry is now at Arras.