Benedetto Marcello had composed six cello sonatas in a similar style shortly before Vivaldi.

Count Rudolf Franz Erwein von Schönborn Wiesentheid, also an amateur cellist, ordered three Vivaldi cello sonatas.

[2] The Paris sonatas were published in 1740[2][3][4] by Leclerc and Boivin,[5] titled VI Sonates Violoncello Solo col Basso.

The print obviously happened without the composer's permission; music for cello was in increasing demand in Paris at the time, and Vivaldi's name popular.

[2][3] The three sonatas RV 39, 44 and 42, were published by Amadeus Verlag in Winterthur in 1975, edited by Walter Kolneder who assumed that it was their first publication.