This terracotta appeared in the sale of Nollekens’s studio effects held on 4 July, 1823 at Christie’s. Some years later, it was compared to Canova’s Three Graces (A.4-1994; now jointly owned by the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Galleries of Scotland). Medwin wrote in The Corsair of 1839, ‘There is a terracotta by Nollekens, that far surpasses in design the Graces of the celebrated Venetian. The three sisters are most judiciously seated in an irregular mound, and their attitudes have all the simplicity and unaffected ease of which immortal grace and beauty are susceptible.’ A related drawing by Nollekens of a standing group of the Three Graces is in the Word and Image Department in the Museum.

As well as producing monuments, Joseph Nollekens (1737-1823) was a prolific sculptor of portrait busts, and operated a thriving workshop in London. He spent eight years in Rome from 1762 to 1770, where he worked with Bartolomeo Cavaceppi restoring and copying antique marbles. One of these copies, his group Castor and Pollux (A.59-1940), is displayed in the British Galleries.