This study of a youthful gentleman drawn spiritedly with a combination of monochrome chalks has traditionally been attributed to Martin Drolling. Born in the Alsace region of north-eastern France Drolling soon moved to Paris and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. He gained momentary celebrity for his ‘Interior of a Kitchen,’ exhibited at the Salon of 1817, and now in the Louvre. He usually painted interiors and small portraitsand had a good reputation with his works remaining persistently popular during his own lifetime, many of them being engraved. He died in Paris in 1827.