This elaborate compositional drawing is preparatory for a painting surviving in the Banco Popolare, Modena, from a cycle of four large-scale works illustrating the life of Samson the Israelite, as told in the book of Judges. It reveals how the studies of the male nude made so faithfully by Bolognese artists working in the academic tradition could be self-consciously adapted to a subject painting. The artist was more interested here in making an institutional gesture rather than a personal expression.