François-Christophe-Armand Toussaint trained at the École des Beaux-Arts where he studied under David d’Angers (1788-1856). Toussaint received the Prix de Rome in 1832 and made his debut at the Salon shortly thereafter in 1836. The sculptor continued to contribute to the Salons, exhibiting the original plaster models for the present lot in 1847 (nos. 2161 and 2162, respectively). It is presumably here that the striking figures caught the eye of the French state, for in February 1850 Toussaint received a commission to produce each figure in bronze for the Ministre de l'Intérieur at the Elysée Palace, for which the artist was paid a total of 12,000 francs.
The first bronze examples of the models were subsequently exhibited at the 1850-1851 Salon (nos. 3598 and 3599), following which the Graux-Marly foundry received the production rights in 1855, followed by the Barbedienne foundry, who won the contract to produce reductions of the same model in three variant sizes in 1869.