Of the four known variants of this subject, this picture is qualitatively the best and may be the work of which the other extant versions are copies. It was sold in 1963 with a certificate of authenticity from Pierre Dubaut and was subsequently offered to the Detroit Institute of Art in 1971, although not purchased.
Despite being unable to give a full attribution, Professor Lorenz Eitner states in a letter dated 25 November 1991,
"The case curiously parallels that of the so-called Grey Horse by Géricault, of which there exist at least 15 copies..." "Your picture has affinities of style and type with that Grey Horse. It also resembles the famous, somewhat larger Head of a White Horse in the Louvre (Bazin III, 674) in its striking monumentality. Its vigorously structured modeling clearly distinguishes it from the other, rather more flaccid versions. It is a powerful work, but is it by Gericault? I believe that your painting may well be the model that spawned the copies. It is known that picture dealers rented out favorite studies by well-known masters to copyists - hence the otherwise difficult-to-explain fact that mere studies, executed privately, produced in some instances whole series of copies by different hands"

A copy of this letter accompanies the picture.