It represents a subject that was much repeated in Hellenistic times and in ancient Rome, to judge from the number of versions that have survived.

[3] The sculpture was presented to the connoisseur Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who in return granted the order the services of his architect Giovanni Battista Soria and paid for the façade of the church, albeit sixteen years later.

In 1620, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Scipione's protégé, was paid sixty scudi for making the buttoned mattress upon which the Hermaphroditus reclines, so strikingly realistic that visitors are inclined to give it a testing prod.

A third Roman marble variant was discovered in 1880, during building works to make Rome the capital of a newly united Italy.

Full size copies were produced for Philip IV of Spain in bronze, ordered by Velázquez and now in the Prado Museum, and for Versailles (by the sculptor Martin Carlier [fr], in marble).