In this story from classical mythology Paris must judge which of the three goddesses was the most beautiful - Venus, Juno or Minerva. The complex composition of this group allowed the sculptor to display the female nude from different angles and suggests multiple viewpoints. Nollekens also executed separate lifesize marble figures of the three goddesses shown here, which are now housed in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. This terracotta appeared in the sale of Nollekens' studio effects held on 4 July, 1823, where it was sold for £2 10s.
Nollekens 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 of Castor and Pollux, is in the Museum's collection (Museum no. A.59-1940). He probably perfected his modelling of clay while he was in Rome and started to experiment in making small figures or groups. These occasionally became models for large-scale finished marbles, but many, like this one, still in his studio at his death, were simply studies in their own right, which he called pensieri (thoughts).