Study for "Soldiers Distributing Bread to the Poor"

As a trained academic artist, Isidore Pils recognized the importance of working out all the details of a composition carefully and methodically, leaving nothing to chance. He prepared this red chalk sketch of a young child and mother in anticipation of a large oil painting he submitted to the Salon of 1852. Soldiers Distributing Bread to the Poor was a contemporary history painting showing the government's concern for the poor during the devastating famine of 1849. Since Pils made several modifications to the mother and child before his final work, there must be numerous as yet unknown studies for other figures in the painting.