Robert, like many other artists of the 18th Century made extensive use of counterproofs. A counterproof was made by wetting the verso of a chalk drawing and pressing a damp sheet of paper onto the recto producing a duplicate in reverse of the original. The method was regarded as a means of fixing the chalk on the original. Counterproofs were valued for their smoothness and evenness by such collectors as Mariette, who owned a large number of them. The museum of Besançon has a large collection of Robert's counterproofs that the architect Paris assembled. Many of them, like the present drawing are signed.