A pen and ink drawing of Helen and Venus in classical dress seated in a tent; Cupid with his bow leads Paris towards them. The scene outlined with a pen line cutting off part of the composition to the left. Two numbers [indistinct] at lower right corner. The sheet folded into quarters; fleur-de-lys watermark similar but not identical with Heawood 1568 (Rome, c. 1697).

The drawing is a preparatory study for a painting of Venus inducing Helen to fall in love with Paris, 1790 (State Hermitage Museums, St Petersburg). The episode, taken from Homer's Iliad, shows the seduction of Helen, wife of the Spartan King Menelaus, by the Trojan prince Paris. His abduction of Helen, carrying her away to the city of Troy, sparked the ten-year Trojan War. In this drawing, Kauffmann uses the figure of Cupid to lead Paris almost reluctantly towards Helen, while the female figure of Venus cajoles Helen. Angelica Kauffmann was a Swiss-born painter of portraits and genre paintings in a neo-classical style. Her early years were spent in Italy, Switzerland and Austria, and she was in England between 1766 and 1781, becoming one of two female founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768. She returned to Italy in 1781, becoming the most famous and successful painter in Rome after the death of Pompeo Batoni in 1787. This study is from the later years of her career. Kauffmann became less active as an artist after 1795. Another preparatory drawing is in the British Museum (1885,0509.1401).