Pierre-Narcisse Guérin

This study of a seated Egyptian warrior with his hand draped protectively across the lifeless body of a younger comrade is preparatory for two figures in the right foreground of Guerin's 1808 painting "Napoleon Pardoning the Rebels at Cairo, 25 October 1798" (oil on canvas, 365 x 500 cm., Musée National du Château, Versailles). The scene depicts the 1798 conflict in Cairo where the local Cairene populace rallied to fight the occupying French army under Napoleon. After the French killed thousands of inhabitants and regained control of the city, Napoleon executed many of the Cairene leaders. Guerin's propagandizing painting gives visual form to the tale that the emperor granted clemency to some of the Egyptian fighters. The French occupation would end with their defeat by an Anglo-Ottoman force in 1801.
Guerin first drew the two figures and a second study for the head of the younger man; these details were trimmed from a larger sheet and pasted onto a third support when Guerin extended the drawing of the pair, completing the head and legs of the older man and the reclining figure of the young man. It was the separate study at right that was used for the head of the younger man in the painting.