Roqueplan is an artist who worked in nearly every genre and is perhaps best known for his role in the Rococo revival of the nineteenth century. Among his most famous works is a canvas in the Wallace Collection, London, "The Lion in Love," 1836, based on one of Jean de la Fontaine's fables. A woman in a velvet skirt, her chemise loose and breast bared, is seated outside trimming the claws of a lion, who is besotted with her. As in the London painting, the figure of a woman seated outdoors with her chemise falling off her shoulder is found repeatedly in Roqueplan's oeuvre. The present drawing shows the model for one of these pictures from behind.
Signed in black chalk at lower right, "Camille Roqueplan".
Watermark: none
Magriel, Paul, 1906-1990, former owner.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Twenty-First Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984-1986. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1989, p. 374.