In 1765, Pierre Julien won the prestigious Prix de Rome, a government-sponsored grant that provided him with funds to study at the Académie de France in Rome. There, he executed numerous drawings and sculptures based on models from antiquity. Julien modeled this work, likely intended for a private patron, after an ancient Roman marble now in the Louvre. The Roman statue was installed at Versailles by Louis XIV and in the 1700s was among the most famous classical antiquities in France.