This sheet was a preparatory study for the face of a singing boy who appears near the center of Music, a mural decorating the left grand staircase at the Théâtre National de l’Opéra-Comique in Paris. Drawn from life with exquisite naturalism, Luc-Olivier Merson captured the sitter’s youthful beauty with such clarity that the purity of the boy’s voice seems to emanate from the drawing.