"Horse Surprised by a Lion" references a number of artistic sources from antique sculpture to the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Peter Paul Rubens, and Barye’s romantic contemporary, Eugène Delacroix. In Paris, Barye studied living animals in the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes and was familiar with the preserved specimens in the museum of comparative anatomy. His sketchbooks indicated that he also observed animal dissections and read scholarly papers on the species he depicted.