In this nude Rodin combines body parts from his other sculptures—the torso of a female figure joins the arms and legs of a male. He designed the hybrid for The Gates of Hell, where it appears in the upper right corner.

In 1885 he created an enlarged version of the form as a standalone sculpture. Ten years later, he added it to his Monument to Victor Hugo—commissioned by the French state to memorialize the recently deceased writer—where it represents an artist’s muse.