Study of a naked man lying on the ground

This work, bearing the painter's signature and the date 1772, is a small format but highly finished study for the figure of a dead warrior which appears, fully armoured, in the foreground of the large canvas representing The intervention of the Sabine women who interrupt the battle by placing themselves between the Roman and Sabine armies. The large history painting, commissioned to Julien de Parme by an Antwerp merchant and now in the Fondazione Magnani Rocca in Traversetolo, may have had considerable influence on the Louvre painting of the same subject later painted by Jacques Louis David.