Jacques-Laurent Agasse was born into a wealthy Geneva merchant family of Huguenot origin. From an early age, he showed interest in drawing and attended the Calabri drawing school. In 1786, he left for Paris to continue his training in Jacques-Louis David's studio. The French Revolution forced him to return to Geneva, but he was soon invited to England by a young man with a passion for animal depictions. Agasse settled in London in 1800, where he became a painter of horses and dogs for wealthy aristocrats. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and other London institutions and succeeded in building up his reputation. However, he remained misunderstood by his contemporaries and critics, who considered him a second-rate master. Today, Jacques-Laurent Agasse is recognized as a major painter with a great talent for depicting animals and for his mastery of anatomical studies. His unique style combines the influence of the Geneva school with the techniques and inspirations he discovered in England. This study of a woman's head, wearing a bow tie over her hair, is made after an antique bust, such as the artists of the "Ecole genevoise de peinture" used to copy for practice. Here, Jacques-Laurent Agasse seems to make an effort to render the support of the antique sculpture, playing with charcoal and chalk to depict the white effects that imitate antique marble.