His father, Pierre François Munier, was an artist upholsterer at the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins and his mother, Marie Louise Carpentier, was a polisher in a cashmere cloth mill.

[2] Munier ceased work at the tapestry factory in 1871 and devoted his time solely to painting;[2] he also began teaching classes to adults three nights a week.

This painting, representing a chubby girl playing on her bed with a kitten and a dog, was an extremely successful work, being reproduced in many forms and used for publicity posters by Pears soap.

[1] Among his many American patrons were Chapman H. Hyams and his wife, who were important collectors of contemporary French paintings during the nineteenth century and favoured artists like Henner, Bouguereau, Gérôme, Vinel and Schreyer.

[1] During the 1890s Munier continued to paint peasant, mythological and religious subjects;[1] he also portrayed animals, scenes depicting fishing, landscapes and seascapes.