This marble bust is of a very successful dancer, Mlle. Guimard, who was also one of the most famous courtesans of pre-Revolutionary France. The sculptor, though Italian by birth, worked in Paris for a number of years, where he carved this lively portrait.

Marie-Madeleine Guimard (1743-1816) was the illegitimate daughter of an inspector in a Paris cloth factory. Having joined the Corps de Ballet at the Comédie-Française, Paris, at the age of 15, she was taken on as a dancer at the Paris Opéra where she made a very successful debut in 1762 as Terpsichore, the muse of dance. She became equally well-known for her amorous conquests which included Jean-Benjamin de la Borde, amateur musician and first valet to the king; Charles de Rohan, Prince de Soubise; and Mgr de Jarente, Bishop of Orléans. In 1789 she married the choreographer and poet Despreaux and retired to a house above Montmartre where she lived until her death in 1816. Edmond de Goncourt wrote a biography about her (1893).

The sculptor, Gaetano Merchi, is less well-known. Born in Brescia in Italy, he went to St Petersburg before working in Paris and then Madrid before returning to France. In Paris he carried out several portraits of actresses and dancers, including this bust which has been much reproduced.

There is another marble version in the Bibliothèque de l'Opéra. It differs from A.71-1952 in that the drapery has a patterned border and the garland is extended to fall over the left breast and across the body to emerge from the drapery under the right breast. The signature appears to be identical. There are a number of other versions, mainly in terracotta.