The Italian contralto Marietta Alboni (1826-1894) born in Umbria, in Citta di Castello, was famous in her day for her fine contralto voice with its two and a half octive range. She was a pupil of the composer and music teacher Giuseppe Antonio Bagioli, and later of the composer Giachino Rossini at Bologna's Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martin. The success of her operatic debut at the age of fifteen as Climène in Giovanni Pacini's Saffo at Bologna's Teatro Communale led to her engagement at La Scala Milan where she first appeared as Neocle in the Italian version of Le Siège de Corinthe. In 1844/1845 she was engaged in the Imperial Bolshoi Kammenny Theatre in Saint-Peterbsburg and in1846/1847 she performed in all the principal cities of Europe. Her appearance as the Cinderella figure Angelina, or Cenerentola in London's Covent Garden Theatre in 1847 was considered by some in direct competition to the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind's appearances at Her Majesty's Theatre. In 1852/1853 she toured in the United States, and was married twice, to Count Carlo Pepoli and after his death to the French officer Charles Zieger. In 1868 Alboni sang a duet with Adelina Patti at Rossini's funeral, in recognition of her love and admiration for the composer who had helped further her career.

Alboni's appearance as Cenerentola was eagerly anticipated in London following her success in the role in Paris. With Antonio Tamburini as Dandini, Alboni's performance in the role was widely praised in the press where she was compared favourably to her predecessors Henriette Sontag and Maria Malbran in the role, one critic declaring that: 'the music was never executed so well from beginning tyo end as by Alboni last night; it suits the qualities and peculiarities of her particularly beautiful voice... The applause was tremendous, the effect electric, and Alboni was obliged to reappear twice before the curtain, amid st the loudest cheering, and acclamations from every part of the house.' The American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerso was far less complementary about her performance, writing in his journal for 3rd May 1848: 'I heard Alboni sing last night in Cenerentola and The Times today calls it the best of her triumphs. I found only the noble bursts of her voice beautiful and the trills and the gurgling and other feats not only not interesting, but as in other performers, painful; mere surgical or, rather functional acts.'

Simply-modelled Staffordshire figure groups like this were popular mass-produced items in the mid 19th-century, made from moulds and based on contemporary prints. Intended as mantelpiece decoration for display against a wall there was rarely any detail or colouring on the backs, which gave rise to the soubriquet of some of them as 'flat-backs'. Cenerentola is modelled in her carriage on the way to the ball, the image based on the half-plate engraving by Alfred Ashley published in 1849 in the weekly publication The Musical Bouquet illustrating her final song: Non Piu Mesta, or Now Free from Fear. The Musical Bouquet, published in London by Charles Sheard from January 1845 to 1898, provided affordable sheet music for the public with individual sheets costing threepence, and illustrations that frequently proved useful sources for the modellers of ceramic figurines and figure groups.