Charles Bargue painted a series of subjects from North Africa and the Balkans. This painting shows a soldier from Albania – a meticulous study for a detail in a larger work. Bargue applied an academic method, based on extensive practice in figure drawing and painstaking oil studies. The Swedish collector Oskar Filip Heilborn bought the painting in Paris in the 1880s, and included it in his donation to the Nationalmuseum in 1902. It is representative of the French style that was appreciated by many Swedes at the time.