This head of a Crying Child is a pendant to that of the Laughing Child (A.2-2008). Other bronze versions of this head are known, although they differ significantly from one another. Pairs of the Laughing and Crying Child in bronze are highly unusual. It has been suggested that they recall the so-called Laughing and Weeping Philosophers, Heraclitus and Democritus. The Laughing and Crying Child in the V&A's collection were almost certainly made as pendants in the eighteenth century; both their virtually identical measurements and closely similar style suggest this, as does the high degree of finish.

The authorship and date of all the known versions of the heads are uncertain, although certain references point to an eighteenth-century origin, and to Roubiliac's probable authorship. Various plaster items in Roubiliac's sale catalogue of 1762 could refer to models and moulds of the heads, including one 'crying boy', moulds for a pair of 'naked busts', and casts of these, as well as the moulds of 'a young child', 'a laughing boy', and 'a boy's head'. The Laughing Child was evidently more popular than the Crying Child, although both became self-sufficient sculptures in their own right. The style recalls both Netherlandish and Italian sculpture of the 17th century, while the lightness of expression and their scale (about half life-size) are also reminiscent of French 18th-century sculpture, but all the surviving versions have a British provenance, and it seems most likely the original models were made in Britain, probably by Roubiliac.