Lorenz Eintner dates this drawing to Géricault's English period or immediately after, in 1822. He compares this drawing to a watercolor in the Louvre, G. Bazin, Théodore Géricault, étude critique, Documents et catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1989, III, no. 669, illustrated. The technique of the present study is also comparable to that of a watercolor of a horse in the Musée Bonnat, in Bayonne. Eintner remarks that 'the watercolor is nearly, but not completely finished, which I consider an advantage, since it preserves the spontaneity and freshness that Géricault's late watercolors sometimes lost in the final elaboration'.
Géricault painted a number of variations of this composition. An oil sketch, of approximately the same size as this drawing, shows the hindquarters of two horses in a stable, similarly separated by a beam, G. Bazin, op. cit., no. 637, illustrated. The significant number of copies similar to this composition led Germain Bazin to think that Géricault made a painting of it, that was well known to contemporaries but that has been subsequently lost, G. Bazin, op. cit., nos 638-42. illustrated. A copy by Charles Cournault, a friend of baron Schwitter and Delacroix, is annotated in his inventory 'n^o 2: Esquisses de 2 chevaux d'aprés Géricault, par moi'. The present drawing may, therefore, have been preparatory for the lost painting

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