The extremely rare prints of the Boxers are considered milestones of early lithography. With technical skill and fine sensitivity in his handling of what was still a very new printmaking medium, the artist achieved a convincing union of form and content. Théodore Géricault executed this composition in 1918, during the period in which he was working on his monumental painting (more than thirty square metres in size) Raft of the Medusa (Musée du Louvre). Both the print and the work on canvas can be described as modern history painting; both formulate contemporary metaphors for equal rights and the struggle for survival.