Although the present work bears similarities to the life drawings Degas executed at the French Academy in Rome, it gives the impression of having been drawn more quickly, and includes summary studies of an arm and leg. If it lacks the finish of some of the Academy drawings, the artist probably did not intend it to be a self-contained exercise. Instead, it is most likely an early preparatory study for one of the boys on the right hand side of the oil painting Les jeunes Spartiates, which the artist painted in 1860-1862 and reworked until 1880 (Lemoisne, vol. II, no. 70). Fewer studies exist for Les jeunes Spartiates than for Degas's two other important historical paintings of this period, Semiramis, 1860-1862 (Lemoisne, vol. II, no. 82) and Scène de guerre au moyen-age, 1863-1865 (Lemoisne, vol. II, no. 124). The inventory compiled after Degas's death mentions 37 drawings for Les jeunes Spartiates, many of which may have been assembled as lot 62b in the First Atelier Degas Sale. Many have since been lost. The present study forms a link between the conventional, somewhat circumscribed world of the Academy, and the later manner in which Degas used this heritage to lay a foundation for a modern synthesis of classical and romantic sensibilities.