Théodore Géricault

This sheet of studies may have originally formed part of a sketchbook. Most of the groups, arranged in three rows, are reminiscences of military life under Napoleon. For example, the central frieze of figures at the bottom of the sheet shows a group of soldiers transporting large blocks of stone roped to a makeshift cart. This might relate to the unsuccessful storming of the citadel of Acre at the beginning of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign in 1799.