A sketch for this composition is on the verso of folio 16 of an album in the Louvre (L.-A. Prat, op. cit., no. 223, pp. 820-1, illustrated). The composition must have been planned as early as September 1838, the date on the recto of the Louvre drawing. Chassériau painted a picture of the same subject more than ten years later, albeit of very different composition (M. Sandoz, Théodore Chassériau, Paris, 1974, no. 185, pl. CLXIV).