Study for the Head of the Poet in The Thorny Path

In his 1873 painting "A Thorny Path," Couture skewered French society using the motif of a triumphal procession. A bare-breasted courtesan drives her chariot down a path lined with brambles; the vehicle is led by four captive men: a bacchic reveler, a dreamy young troubadour, a pensive poet, and a resigned soldier. An older woman sits in the back of the carriage, looking out at the viewer. The canvas in the Philadelphia Museum of Art is a metaphor for what the artist perceived as a decadent culture. While preparing the painting, the artist made several drawn studies and a compositional study in oils, now in the Musée des beaux-arts, Rennes. A drawing for the composition was sold in Paris in 1970.
The present study is for the figure third from left, the thoughtful poet wearing a hat strewn with laurel leaves, who writes in his notebook as he walks. His head and shoulders are visible between the arms of the troubadour and soldier. A similar large-scale study for the head of the bacchic reveler is in a private collection.