The present bronze is a slight variation of a portrait of the artist's ex-model and ex-mistress, Apolloine Sabateir. Originally commissioned as a plaster by her current lover, the Parisian financier and newspaper owner Alfred Mosselman, the model was reworked in marble and exhibited at the Salon of 1847. The sculpture created a sensation because of its uninhibited posture and attitude and Clesinger capitalized on the scandal by editing a reduction of the model in bronze.
Another example of this model (cast #4) was sold in these rooms on December 3, 1992 (lot 165).