Philosophers disputing: a capriccio using figures from Salvator Rosa's 'Figurine' etchings

To compose the scene West took individual figures from Rosa's series of Figurine etchings. The ascetic figure on the left with the staff is taken from a ragged man with a staff and gourd (Bartsch 75); the soldier wearing a breastplate in the right background is a reversed copy of the left-hand figure in an etching of three warriors (Bartsch 60); and the helmeted figure in the right foreground is also a close quotation from the Figurine (Bartsch 51). The seated figure, holding a mirror or panel, appears to derive from the helmeted man's companion in Bartsch 51, and from a range of other seated figures in Rosa's series, although it seems odd that he alone should lack a direct prototype in the Figurine.