The son of the painter René-Antoine Houasse, the artist was trained in the academic tradition and spent the years 1699-1705 in Rome, where his father was director of the French Academy. He was
agrée by the Academie Royale on returning to France, his morceau de réception, accepted on 24 November 1707, being the 'Hercules throwing Lycas into the Sea', now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tours. In 1715, Orry, the French minister of Philip V and advisor to the court at Madrid, arranged for Houasse to go to Spain, where he remained for most of the rest of his life, painting for Philip V portraits, religious and mythological subjects, as well as genre scenes and the small landscapes which are his greatest achievement.

The present picture is particularly related to the 'Bacchanal' of 1719 and 'Sacrifice to Bacchus' of 1720, painted for Philip V and now in the Prado, in both of which the signature is in the same form as that on the present work. The obese figure of the young Bacchus may have been inspired by Juan Carreño de Miranda's 'The Monster Eugenia Martínez Vallejo as the young Bacchus' then at La Zarzuela and now in the Prado (see, for instance, the catalogue of the exhibition, Carreño, Rizi, Herrera e la Pintura Madrileña de su Tiempo 1650-1700, Palacio de Villahermosa, Madrid, Jan.-March 1986, pp.228-9, no.50, illustrated in colour p.138)