Having served his apprenticeship in his home town of Liverpool, John Gibson (d.1866) moved to London, where through connections with Lord Brougham and Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods, he received portrait commissions and had his work accepted by the Royal Academy. His heart set on Rome, he finally arrived there in 1817 and was welcomed into the studio of the celebrated sculptor Canova. He also received assistance from Thorwaldsen, who was living in the city at the time. Gibson's first original work was his life-size figure of the 'Sleeping Shepherd' and his first patron, the Duke of Devonshire, for whom he carved 'Mars and Cupid'. The sculptors rapid success led friends to urge him to return to England where he could make substantial amounts of money through such commissions. However, despite exhibiting at the Royal Academy between 1816 to 1864 and being elected a full member in 1838, Gibson refused to do so, only revisiting the country on two further occasions, each time to execute a statue of Queen Victoria.

The present two figures were a gift from Gibson to his good friend and fellow compatriot in Rome, the sculptor Benjamin Spence (d.1866). Gibson and William Spence (d.1849), Benjamin's father, had served their apprenticeships together in Liverpool and it was Gibson who persuaded Spence to send his son to study in Italy, where on Gibson's death and shortly before his own in 1866 he carved, as a sign of his admiration and friendship, the monument erected over the latter's grave in the Protestant cemetery in Rome. In 1870, four years after Spence's death, Messrs. Christie, Manson and Woods held a sale in London of the remaining works from the sculptor's studio in Rome. Among these were Gibsons Cupid Disguised as a Shepherd-boy and the Dancing Girl, which sold for ¨57.15s and ¨132.6s respectively.

Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840, the figure of Cupid Disguised as a Shepherd-boy was originally executed for Sir John Johnstone and full-size replicas made for Tsar Alexander II, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Crewe and two American collectors. Gibson recalls how the idea for the subject was conceived: "Taking up the 'Amiula' of Tasso, my imagination was caught by the passage in the Prologue (....). This gave me the idea of modelling love disguised as a shepherd in his Greek hat and little cloak. The (...) God, while slyly concealing behind his back the arrow of (...), advances his right hand as if to inspire confidence and assumes an air of modesty and timidity. Below the edge of his mantle behind are just seen the tips of his folded wings" (see Life of Gibson, edited by Lady Eastlake, 1870). In a letter from E.H. Gower, father of Mrs Spence, the sculptor's widow, addressed to W.W. Williams, the purchaser of the figures in the Christie's sale, Gower, in referring to the origin of the Dancing Girl, relates how his daughter often heard Gibson himself explain the source of the idea: "He (Gibson) was walking in the streets of Rome when he saw a young girl playfully skip and (...) up, a young child dancing in the rain - the movement of the arms was impressed on him as affording a fine object of artistic display which was embodied in the dancing girl, with, I understand, a tambourine or something in her hands (...)" (Leghorn, 15 May 1871).

A selection of contemporary correspondence relating to these two figures by Gibson subsequent to their sale at Christie's in 1870 is to be included in the sale of this lot.