Possibly commissioned for the English automata maker John Dennison. Dennison was active from around 1875 until his death in 1926, after which his daughters took over the business and continued exhibiting their father's machines at Blackpool Tower. The collection was finally sold in 1944, although the daughters (and Dennison himself) had been selling off models individually for many years.

Several of the early models were either commissioned directly from French automata makers such as Phalibois and Vichy, or purchased in part and then converted to coin-operation in Dennison's Salop Street workshop. His record book (in a private collection) lists an 1893 purchase of a "rope dancer acrobat". In 1938 a model of the same description was apparently repaired by Dennison's daughers and the door replaced. Unfortunately little documentation remains to shed more light on the family's links with the French automata industry. With its replacement door and old penny operation for the British market, it is possible that the automaton offered here is the same model mentioned in the 1893 entry.