This curious drawing in ink on tracing paper records the composition of one of Fantin-Latour's ambitious group portraits, an 1872 canvas devoted to the poets who formed the Parnassus group. The painting Un Coin de table is now in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, depicts from left to right, seated: Paul Verlaine, Alfred Rimbaud, Léon Valade, Ernest d'Hervilly and Camille Pelletan, and standing behind them, Elzéar Bonnier, Emile Blémont and Jean Aicard. The picture had a complex genesis, and two small drawings in the Louvre and a letter sketch are among Fantin-Latour's preparatory material for the canvas.
The author of this sketch recording the composition added numbers and a key to identify the group gathered around the table, a handy reference when the work was shown in the annual Salon exhibition in 1872. Although on tracing paper, the drawing may have been done freehand rather than replicating a printed image of the painting.