CA0434 Small 19th century oil sketch on panel depicting Coriolanus at the walls of Rome

Fascinating early 19th century small oil sketch on panel depicting an episode from the life of the 5th century BC Roman General Gaius Marcius Coriolanus who, after being exiled, led an army of Rome's enemy the Volsci to beseige the city state. The scene depicts the mother of Coriolanus leading a group of women, with their children pleading with her son not to lay seige to Rome. The sketch has two labels to the back attributing it to the artist Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774-1833). The painting was previously owned by Edward Croft-Murray (1907-1980) an art expert and Keeper of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum so this could conceivably be an original oil sketch by Guérin for an unrealised painting (I have been unable to find a larger painting that relates to it). For a sketch by Guérin with similar hand see 'Study for the Death of Lucretia' in Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, France. Original frame.

H 29.5cm x W 38cm