Angels Removing a Statue of the Virgin from a Temple of Mohammed

Watermark: part of Van der Ley mill mark (see Churchill 192).
This sheet belongs to an ensemble of eighteen preparatory sketches (seven for vignettes and eleven for headpieces) for illustrations and two prints after Cochin for an 1784-85 edition of Torquato Tasso's "La Gerusalemme Liberata" published in Paris by François Ambroise Didot. These illustrations were commissioned by Monsieur, the Comte de Provence and the brother of Louis XVI who later reigned as Louis XVIII (1755-1824). The eighteen drawings were part of an album of 102 drawings broken up and sold in several lots by Sotheby's, London, in 1970.
The present sheet is preparatory for the headpiece to Canto II, Ott. 9 of "La Gerusalemme Liberata". The corresponding finished drawing, considerably different from the Morgan sketch, is in the Spencer Collection at the New York Public Library and is signed and dated by the artist. In the Spencer sheet, the Virgin, here shown as a mother holding her child, with two doves, a dog, and a lamb at her feet, has been transformed into a large heavy statue requiring two additional angels to carry it.