Rysbrack was the leading monumental and architectural sculptor working in England in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, but when he faced competition in the 1740s from Peter Scheemakers and Louis-François Roubiliac he found himself 'somewhat at leisure, business not being so brisk.'
According to his patron Charles Rogers, Rysbrack would 'amuse himself with making high-finished Drawings in an admirable taste; these are generally of his own invention, designed with a smart pen, washed with bister, and heightened with white.' The present classically-inspired drawing is characteristic of this type of Rysbrack's drawings. It was natural for Rysbrack to present his narrative in the form of a relief, for he created many reliefs in his work as an architectural sculptor.
