Graphite pencil and grayish Indian ink wash on laid paperCharles de la Traverse was, above all, a prolific draftsman, active in Paris, Rome, Naples and Madrid. In Naples he would find the protection of the Marquis of Ossun, French ambassador to the Court of Charles III, whom he accompanied to Madrid around 1760, where he would remain for 20 years.
This drawing and his partner (Landscape with soldiers resting next to a stream and a lion crossing a bridge) date from the last years of the artist’s stay in Spain. In them we find two clearly differentiated groups, one male and the other female, who carry out various actions next to a river. In this drawing, two girls accompanied by a boy wash clothes next to the stream; an apparently bucolic action that, however, makes sense when paired with the soldiers from the other drawing who are resting next to the other river, on the same bank as the lion that timidly begins to flank the bridge.