Rodin derived this sculpture from a series of heads of crying girls which he executed before 1885 for bas-reliefs he intended to place at the foot of each leaf of The Gates of Hell. The features of the subject of the present work appear to be those of an older woman, however, possibly those of a Russian model named Bosnouskaya, who also served as the inspiration for the great series of weeping figures of the late 1880s, including Crying Nymph, Woman Crying, and Danaid Overcome. (See lot 147 for a related subject)