Étienne-Maurice Falconet (1716-1791) became the director of sculpture at the Sèvres factory in 1757. It was during this period that he developed the subject of Venus and Cupid, producing a series of images on the theme for translation into porcelain. The present group of Venus nursing Cupid is a celebrated model by Falconet, and is a variant of a marble group in the Wallace Collection, London. It treats with masterly success a mythological topic on an intimate scale, and consequently achieved great popularity. It was reproduced within Falconet's studio and later during the 19th century. The present version is a fine copy, closely following Falconet's delicacy of carving, such as the softness of the flesh and the tapering fingers.