George Simonds (?1847-1929) did most of his training as a sculptor abroad, having studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in Dresden before working in Brussels and Rome. In 1877 he returned to London where he became an influential member of the Arts and Crafts movement, and in 1886 he was made the first President, or Master, of the Art Worker's Guild.
Quite apart from the intellectual influence which Simonds exerted on artistic theory (he was a passionate advocate of the revival of lost wax casting in England), he was in considerable demand to produce public monuments, as well as groups from mythological or literary sources. Among these, the present marble of The Swan Girl, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1898 under number 1938, is listed as coming from "the Völund Saga group". It may be compared, both for its source and its treatment of the female nude, with another marble by Simonds: Goddess Gerd: The Northern Aurora. In both works one sees a similar attention to sinuous profiles, and a delight in the depiction of adolescent beauty.