Object Type
The Chelsea porcelain factory copied this figure group from a French Roman Catholic devotional sculpture. However, it was probably intended to be displayed in a domestic interior and appreciated as a small-scale work of art. Although 18th-century Britain was Protestant, collectors and connoisseurs of Old Master paintings and prints admired, or at least tolerated, Catholic Counter-Reformation imagery. A London sale of Chelsea porcelain held in 1761 included a version of this group, and Chelsea groups of the Madonna and Child were also sold in London in 1756. This suggests that, despite their Catholic imagery, these groups were intended for the home market.

Design & Designing
Joseph Willems (1715-1766), figure modeller for the Chelsea porcelain factory, based this composition on a sculpture by Nicolas Coustou (1658-1733) in the cathedral of Nôtre Dame, Paris. The figures here do not face the same way as in the sculpture, but are reversed. This suggests that Willems may have used a print of the sculpture, as the process of engraving and printing often results in such reversals. A terracotta model of this subject was among Willems's effects left on his death at Tournai in 1766. The connection between Coustou and Chelsea may have been via the sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac, who trained under Coustou, and was a close friend of Nicholas Sprimont (1716-1771), the manager of the Chelsea factory.