As a prominent painter of the École genevoise de peinture, Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours is now regarded as one of the most important and influential artists from Geneva. His studies at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris and later in the workshop of Joseph-Marie Vien (1716-1809) were brilliant: in 1780, he won the prestigious Prix de Rome for his painting depicting the Rape of the Sabine Women (now destroyed). As a foreigner and a Protestant, the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture refused to grant him the customary reward: a scholarship for a trip to Rome to study the paintings of the Masters. Nevertheless, Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours managed to leave Paris and travel to Italy on his own. There, he chose the customs of ancient peoples as his preferred subject, in contrast to his contemporaries who came to the Eternal City to exalt the tales of ancient heroes.

From the late 18th century until his death, Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours painted some "compositions monumentales jalonnées de magnifiques esquisses préparatoires" (A. de Herdt 2009). In Rome, Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours painted his famous painting of the Olympic Games, which is now on view in the halls of the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva. This painting was completed in 1790 and was acquired the following year by the great collector François Tronchin (1704-1798). Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours’ painting of the Olympic Games is a great success, and the painter created a second version in 1807. This version was rediscovered in 2013 in the collection of the Hôpitaux Universitaires of Geneva and is now part of the collection of the Musée d’art et d’histoire. It is for this second version that the Swiss painter realized the present sketch, incorporating the vast majority of the elements from his first version while announcing a significant modification that changes the subject of the work: the two soldiers fighting in the center of the painting in the Musée d’art et d’histoire are replaced, in our sketch and its final painting, by the figure of the winner being presented to the judges, sitting on the left. The vigorous brushstroke, the quick application of paint, and the powerful work on the use of contrasting colors give the sketch a vibrant appearance and a lively aesthetic.

The present painting is included in the artist’s catalogue raisonné and presents a remarkable and well-documented provenance, notably thanks to a lithograph of the sketch at hand. This lithograph was made in 1860 by Jules Hébert (1812-1897) and bears the inscription "d’après l’esquisse peinte appartenant à Mr John Revilliod" (i. e., after the painted sketch belonging to Mr. John Revilliod). John Revilliod (1798-1875) was the director of the Bank of Commerce of Geneva. For now, the present preparatory painting is the last known sketch by Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours, who realized it just two years before his death.