Figure study and inscriptions

Théodore Géricault posed the soldier in this slight drawing in a manner similar to the man in his 1814 painting The Wounded Cuirassier.He conceived the picture as a pendant to his earlier work, the Charging Chasseur, and exhibited it in the Paris Salon the same year. Géricault seems to have written the notes at the top of the cover to remind himself to copy various motifs and subjects from other masters and from antiquity. For example, he noted works by his teacher Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, and the French artist Nicolas Poussin as important sources of inspiration.