This masterly figure study is one of a series believed to have been executed by Trumbull in Paris about 1795. A year earlier in America the artist had abandoned work on his project to paint the great events of the American Revolution and accepted diplomatic service in England and France, where he also engaged in picture dealing. Drawings such as this one thus represent the only known artwork that Trumbull produced between his 1794 departure for England and his resumption of artistic activity in London in 1800, when, as even he admitted, he had lost much of his technical prowess. The presumed French origin of this study, in contrast to Trumbull’s earlier English or American drawings, is suggested by the use of black and white chalks on blue laid paper to stress sculptural volume, a practice more typical of life drawing at the French Academy than at the Royal Academy in London. The dynamic stance of this figure and others in the series recalls the classically inspired poses in Trumbull’s previous history paintings and in those of the American expatriate John Singleton Copley, whom Trumbull knew in London.