A Greek dancer: a young girl leaning against a classicizing plinth surrounded by attributes alluding to the transience of life

The drawing reproduces a composition by Mengs, The Greek Dancer, known from a large format cartoon in the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe (inv. 678; Roettgen, op. cit., no. 107, ill.). The cartoon, together with its pendant representing the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, also in Karlsruhe, was made in preparation for two, now lost, pastels commissioned from Mengs by Marc-Antoine-Nicolas de Croismare, Marquis de Lasson (1694-1772). The genesis of the two pastels is well documented in several letters exchanged between the artist and his French patron through the mediation of the painter Jean-Antoine Arthur. The pastels were executed around 1754-6 and immediately published and celebrated by contemporary sources. The existence of this copy attests to the importance and resonance of the commission.