Born in 1819 in Milan, Antonio Rossetti worked for the most part in Rome, where his work was much admired by both Italians and foreign visitors to the city.

The present allegorical group depicts Esmeralda, the gypsy-girl heroine from Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, teaching her companion goat to read. The pedestal she sits on is inset with four relief panels depicting the purchase, transportation and liberation of slave-girls. This group ia a companion piece to Rossetti's Nubian Slave carved at approximately the same time and with an identical pedestal, a version of which may now be found in the Botanical Gardens of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow.