Ruth, the biblical heroine often depicted dutifully gleaning, was a popular subject among 19^th century sculptors active in Italy, notably Giovanni Battista Lombardi and the American Randolph Rogers, whose famous depiction of the gleaning heroine is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 99.7.1). Romanelli first exhibited the model in Paris in 1851. The Biblical book of Ruth relates how young Ruth, great-grandmother of David, was married to a Hebrew immigrant in Moab. After his premature death, she left her native land and went with her mother-in-law, Naomi, to Bethlehem. There she was allowed to glean wheat in fields belonging to Boaz, a rich farmer and kinsman of Naomi. Maintaining a modest demeanour among the men working the harvest, Ruth, one night, went to lay at the feet of Boaz as he slept. By this act Boaz saw her virtue and in due course the two were married.
Pasquale Romanelli was a pupil of Luigi Pampaloni and Lorenzo Bartolini in Florence. He subsequently became Bartolini's collaborator and continued his studio on the latter's death. Romanelli achieved notoriety in his own right, executing numerous public monuments in his native Italy and exhibited both in Paris and London. He was particularly renowned for his sensuous treatment of mythological, allegorical and biblical female figures, including the figural group of Miriam retreiving the child Moses from the reeds.