"The present sheet may have been intended as an illustration, albeit one that was not used, for Gérard de Houville’s novel Le Seducteur, published in 1926 with numerous illustrations by Marty. Gérard de Houville was the pen name of the French novelist and poet Marie de Régnier (1875-1963), and Le Seducteur, first published in 1914, was inspired by the childhood of her father, the poet Jose-Maria de Heredia, in Cuba. This composition of this illustration, particularly the pose of the seated boy, is similar to a small vignette illustration on page 108 of the book."