Study for Ludus pro patria: A group of figures in classical costume gathered beside a river

The drawing is a preparatory sketch, with differences, for the painting Ludus pro patria (‘Patriotic games’) which was commissioned from de Chavannes in around 1880 by the Musée de Picardie, Amiens. The monumental canvas was designed to decorate the upper wall of the museum's staircase, and was one of several pictures executed for the institution by de Chavannes, which included an earlier painting titled Ave Picardia Nutrix ('Picardy the nurturer'; see Puvis de Chavannes 1824-1898, exhib. cat. Paris, Grand Palais, and Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, 1977, pp. 60-67, 167-169). Several further preparatory drawings for the present composition are known (Paris and Ottawa, 1977, op. cit., pp. 170-3; and M.-C. Boucher, Les dessins de Puvis de Chavannes du Musée de Picardie, Amiens, 1994, nos. 87-100).

We are grateful to Bertrand Puvis de Chavannes for confirming the attribution of the present sheet after examination of the original.