Lanteri made this life cast from the right hand of Joseph Edgar Boehm, a successful royal and society sculptor. Boehm seems to have used it as the model for the right hand on his monument to Sir Francis Drake, erected in Fitzford, Tavistock, and at The Hoe in Plymouth.

Edouard Lanteri (1848-1917), a sculptor and medallist, was a native of Burgundy, and initially trained under Aimé Millet (1819-1891) and M. Lecoque de Boisbaudran, and later at the École des Beaux-Arts under Eugène Guillaume (1822-1905) and Pierre-Jules Cavalier.
Lanteri settled in England from 1872, and was naturalised in 1901. At the age of 23 he became chief assistant to Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm a position he held until Boehm's death in 1890. In 1874 Lanteri was appointed Master of Modelling at the National Art Training School (now Royal College of Art), and in 1900 became the first Professor of Modelling. During 1905/6 he supervised students working on the figures of Fame, Sculpture and Architecture for the Exhibition Road façade of the Museum. Lanteri wrote a three volume guide to modelling published in 1902, 1904 and 1911.

Boehm (1834-1890) was an English sculptor and medallist born in Austria, as the youngest son of Joseph Daniel Boehm (1794–1865), a court medallist and director of the Imperial Mint at Vienna. From 1848 to 1851 Joseph Edgar attended Leigh’s art academy (later Heatherley’s) in London and drew the Parthenon marbles in the British Museum. On his return to Vienna he enrolled at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste. Around 1858–9 he visited Italy, where he developed a lasting admiration for early Renaissance sculpture. From 1859 to 1862 he worked in Paris and was influenced by the work of Paul Gayrard (1807–1855). Boehm settled in London in 1862 where he befriended John Leech and John Everett Millais, both of whom he portrayed in statuettes in 1863. A statuette of William Makepeace Thackeray (1864) led to an edition of 70 plaster casts. Boehm frequently worked in terracotta, a material common in French sculpture but less familiar in English. Queen Victoria’s admiration of Boehm’s statuettes led to an association with the royal family that lasted from 1869 until his death. Most of Boehm’s works are portrait busts. Boehm was immensely prolific: some 360 different works are documented. He was a highly consistent sculptor, rarely deviating from his brand of realism. He was modest about his immense popularity and aware of his imaginative shortcomings (cit.: M. Stocker: 'Boehm, Joseph Edgar').