Femme et gazelles, Lipchitz's first major sculpture, was executed while he was studying at the Académie Julien, Paris. He modeled the gazelle after a sketching trip to the Jardin des Plantes, and subsequently decided to combine it with a female nude which he made at the Académie. Femme et gazelles met with considerable success when the sculpture was exhibited in plaster at the 1913 Salon d'Automne. The sculpture originally included one gazelle, but Lipchitz decided to balance the composition by adding a second. Lipchitz's work of 1911-1912 represents the continuation of the classical tradition seen in the work of Bourdelle, Dalou, Despiau and, above all, Maillol. "According to Deborah Stott, 'Lipchitz remembered that he was drawn to the balanced, self-contained sculpture of Maillol and works in the Greek galleries in the Louvre...' The figure differs from Maillol's sculpture in the elongation of the arms and the slender body. And yet Femme et gazelles, in the balance and equilibrium of the simplified treatment of the volumes, shares with Maillol's timeless nudes a feeling of classical calm." (A. G. Wilkinson, op.cit., p. 60)