Charles Ricketts began working as a sculptor about 1905, obviously under the influence of Rodin, who had become the second president of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers (1898-1925) that exhibited annually in London, in 1904.
Originally called ‘Bronze Statuette’ or ‘Maternité’ , it was gifted by an anonymous member of the Executive Committee of the Contemporary Art Society in its foundation year in 1910 and later presented to the Tate Gallery in 1917. The anonymous donor was most likely Ernest Marsh (19863-1945), a co-founder of the CAS, who curated A Loan Exhibition of Modern Pictures, Drawings, Bronzes, Etchings, Lithographs and Salt glaze Stoneware, Kingston-upon-Thames Museum and Art Gallery in 1911, as a sort of launch show of the CAS. The Ricketts sculpture was displayed alongside his own bronzes including a Rodin.