The first drawing is preparatory for a marble group of Silenus and the nymph Aegle, executed for the court of Parma in 1766. Jean-Baptiste Boudard, a French artist working at the French court of Parma, was commissioned in 1765 to carve a group of Silenus and the nymph Aegle. The commission was part of a competition based on Virgilian subjects held at the Parma Academy of Painting. In January 1766, Boudard was still working on the group, as noted by an English traveller to Parma: 'He was then doing the story of Silenus with the boys and the nymph Aegle'. The sculpture, finished later that year, was to decorate the ducal gardens, Parma, Jean Baptiste Boudard, exhib. cat., Parma, Giardino Ducale, Instituto d'Arte 'P. Toschi', 1990, no. 51, pls. 26-34. There are minor differences, mainly in the secondary figures, from the finished sculpture. The carved pedestal was also replaced by a simple circular base. A reduction of the group in silver is in a private collection, Parma, op. cit., no. 50, pls. 36-7.
No commission has been connected to the second drawing. It was probably drawn as a pendant to the other group, perhaps in the hope of gaining the commission